


Two Friends

by CharacterFiction



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Fluff, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-14
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-01-17 09:16:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 54,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12362541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharacterFiction/pseuds/CharacterFiction
Summary: Chloe Price gets through life with the help of her imagination and the ability to not care. She figures this is her life. So she didn't know how to react upon seeing the short and awkward Maxine Caulfield other than that she was nice. Their lives seemed intertwined, though, and Chloe finds that she may have found the friend she didn't know she had been looking for.





	1. Chapter 01

** Chapter 01 **

An obnoxiously loud beeping cuts through the gloomy silence of the room.

Chloe blearily blink open her eyes then lets out a groan realizing she had been pulled out of her dreams. Rolling over onto her side, she pounds a fist onto the alarm clock adding to the considerable damage she already did to it before.

Forcing herself onto all fours on her bed, she then flips into a sitting position where she stares blankly at the edge of her bed waiting for the vestiges of sleep to float away. Coughing a bit, she scratches her sides as her eyes roam her room.

Mindlessly, she makes a mental note to straighten out her manga lying haphazardly in a pile on her desk, to clean up the clothes that had piled up on the other side of the room, and to pick up some of the paper balls she threw out of boredom off the floor.

It wouldn't be the first time she made the same mental note. As before, it likely wouldn't get done. What would really be the point?

The sunlight filters through her closed blinds forcing the shadows in the room to recede. In the process, it reveals the discolored walls and dust. Her dad, William, did say he intended to repaint her room one day, but work always got in the way. Honestly, she didn't really mind at all.

Yawning, Chloe forces herself off the bed. Sleep hadn't fully left her but she couldn't delay any longer. Her mom would chew her head off if she is late to school again.

Grabbing a slightly wrinkled white t-shirt and jeans, she stumbles out her room into the bathroom where she begins stripping throwing her old clothes onto the floor. Chloe picks up her toothbrush, carelessly squeeze toothpaste onto her, and brushes her jaw in front of the mirror.

Staring at her reflection, she twists her body a bit scowling a little at her gangly appearance. She had been a scrawny girl for as long as she can remember, but when she hit a growth spurt shortly after she turned 11-years-old, it became so much more pronounced. Now she towers over nearly all the other girls at her school and even some of the boys. This has the effect of making her already thin appearance look even thinner.

Her parents used to joke about 'their little giant' and how she would have a future in the NBA once she fills up a little more. They've since stopped when she took it badly _just once_ on a day she was feeling really shitty and now they think she's sensitive about her appearance when she really doesn't care at all.

Rinsing her mouth to spit out the toothpaste, she climbs into the bathroom and begins the morning shower. She runs the bar soap over her body and hair then rinses it out staring as soapy liquid goes down the drain.

When her skin started wrinkling, she figures enough is enough and got out to dry herself. The hot water had felt good and she hadn't wanted to leave, especially not for school. Not that there wasn't a lot of things she would have happily given up school for.

Throwing on her t-shirt and jeans, Chloe grabs her old clothes and leaves. Opening the door to her room, she quickly tosses her clothes next to the rest on the floor, grabs her backpack, then trudges downstairs slumping onto a chair where her father is already seated. In the kitchen, her mother is humming to herself making what smells like sausage and eggs.

"Well, morning there, sunshine." William greets smiling. Chloe grumbles an incoherent reply. "Whoa, looks like someone is still in dreamland."

"It'll be at least noon before she gets her head out of sleep." Joyce shouts from the kitchen. "After that, it'll be another three or four hours until she's ready to get the day started."

William mocks a thoughtful look. "So…after school is finished and done with?" Joyce gives an affirmative causing her husband to laugh.

"God, you are so cheerful that it's giving me a headache." Chloe groans. "You know you made this same joke last week?"

"If it's worth hearing once, it's worth hearing again."

She didn't respond that it wasn't worth hearing the first time either. She gets the feeling that it wouldn't be appreciated. She genuinely loves her father, but his unlimited enthusiasm galls her at the best of times and gives her a fit at other times.

Joyce walks into the living room placing three plates of sausage and eggs down. "Now chin up, honey. There's no point in moping, especially this early in the morn."

"Your mother's right, kid. You know, it's not often we get to be together like this. We should enjoy it whenever we can. Who knows when the next time might be?"

Chloe bites into a piece of sausage recalling perfectly that the last time they were together like this was twelve days ago and she is apt to think the next time wouldn't be too much shorter.

She doesn't have the right to blame them. Their lack of time together is the direct result of her parents' jobs. Both work a ridiculous amount of overtime and, as a result, they never have much time to be a family.

William is understandably busy considering he's pretty high up at his place and he's been talking about the possibility of a promotion recently. Her mother, though, is a waitress at a diner and she still gets overloaded with work because they're understaffed.

On a good day, her mother might work perhaps only ten hours. On a bad day, thirteen hours. At a diner that is supposed to be opened only twelve hours a day. Her mother explained several times that she sometimes has to come in early to start the kitchen and open the doors, though Chloe never got why _she_ is the one who has to do it.

Regardless of why, the end result is the same. Some days she would be lucky enough to see both her parents and, other days, she might only see Joyce. Yet other days, she might see neither.

Joyce clears her throat and begins slowly, "So Chloe, how is school going?"

"Pretty good." She mumbles. "I'm getting good grades and stuff."

That wasn't what Joyce really wanted to know and Chloe knew it. She had always gotten good grades and did her homework, even if she's often inattentive. So her parents usually trust her to keep up with school. What they really wanted to know is her social life.

Most days, Joyce is first the come home and she would find Chloe watching TV or reading comic books. Both of them sometimes say that they wish she would introduce them to some friends. She can read underneath their words, though, and know what they _really_ mean is that they wish she let them know she has friends at all.

"Oh, that's good. Your father and I are very proud of you, dear." Joyce says softly.

She throws a pointed glance towards William. He gets the hint and inserts himself into the conversation trying to sound casual.

"Say, kiddo, I'm glad to hear you're not having trouble with schoolwork, but how's, uh, things with your friends? Everything good? No problems?" She nods silently hoping he lets it go. "I've said it before, but your friends are _always_ welcomed here, Chloe. Any time you want to bring them, you can."

She nods again not saying anything choosing to finish off one of the sausages on her plate. From the periphery of her eyes, though, she can see the disappointment in both of her parents' eyes. She fights back the urge to jump up and defend herself knowing how useless it is.

She _does_ have friends. Plenty of them. They just hang together in school only. She could ask one of them to come to her house to finally get her parents off her back, but she didn't see the point. She could also tell them about her friends, but then they'll want her to bring them over and she doesn't want to.

Besides, what business is it of theirs what's happening in her life? So long as she gets good grades, they should leave her alone.

Another pointed look from Joyce tells William to say something else.

"Chloe, uh, we both know your birthday is coming up…" She stops eating and looks up at him trying to keep her face blank. "and we were talking about what to do for you. We have good news too! The good news is that you're going to have your birthday early. We're thinking of holding it today."

She swallows down a lump in her throat. "Where? When?"

"At the Two Whales diner. At six." William quickly adds, "Now we know you don't really like the diner for heaven knows what reason, but, well, your mother couldn't get the time to get away from work. I'm just barely making it myself – I'm getting an hour's break to attend then I have to get back."

There is a slight feeling of a sting somewhere in her chest, but Chloe has long since become numb to that. So once again, her parents' job gets in the way of them being a family. No surprise there.

She nods emotionlessly. "Sure, sounds good to me. I'll stop there about six. Will there be a cake?"

"Of course there will be, honey." Joyce says keeping up a small smile. "Made personally by me. It'll be your favorite."

"It sure will be, trooper! The best strawberry-"

He lets out a pained yelp when Joyce quickly elbows him in the side.

"Your favorite of cherry-flavored cake. I also decided to add some banana toppings and sprinkles too." Joyce says. William blushes realizing his mistake. "We got you presents, but we've hidden it at the Two Whales already, so don't bother trying to find it."

Chloe gives them a smile. She had no intention of trying to search for her presents. She would have been just as happy not having this birthday at all, really.

"I promise I won't." She assures them. "I think I better go now, but I'll be at the Two Whales around six."

William frowns looking at her plate. "Honey, you only ate one sausage and half of another. You're going to die of malnutrition at this rate."

"Don't be ridiculous." She gets up shouldering her backpack and walks towards the front door. "Anyway, talk to you later."

Outside, Chloe feels a chill passes through her and she lets out a shuddering breath. Placing her hands inside her pockets and huddling to herself, she begins the trek towards her school.

Arcadia Bay lies silent and lonely as it does most days. The transition from Winter to Spring has been like a rollercoaster going from cold to warm to freezing to hot then back again refusing to settle on one or the other.

The flora of the town should be flourishing already, but they mostly remain lifeless and seem as if they're still caught in the dead of winter at times. During her walk, Chloe would glance at one house or another and, sometimes, there would be people out destroying the branches off trees or killing the little grass growing in their lawns by mowing it down.

She grunts in disgust seeing even the lack of insects. In this place barren of beautiful flowers to feast upon, even they don't want to be around.

Though Chloe left home a bit earlier than usual, she arrives at Arcadia Junior High just as the bell rings letting students in. She's glad for the timing, however. As she reaches the school, she already saw several people she detested and didn't want to even see. She is almost glad to go inside the school and avoid them.

Well, she was glad until her homeroom teacher finishes roll call, they make their pledge of allegiance, and then they're shuffled to their first class. At that point, she could already imagine the tedium of her teacher going on about so-and-so subject that has no meaning whatsoever.

She could predict with certainty how the class will end. Shortly before the bell will ring ending the class, the teacher will assign everyone chapters in their textbook emphasizing their importance in upcoming tests. These chapters – which will have portions bolded to indicate the important parts – will be all Chloe needs to pass the upcoming tests.

So knowing this, she, of course, doesn't bother to pay attention to the lecture and lessons. She instead daydreams about the comics and manga she's been reading, the TV shows she's been watching, her upcoming birthday celebration at the Two Whales, her parents, and whatever else pops into her mind. This continues until the bell rings and things happen exactly as she predicted.

The next class is exactly the same. As is the class after that. Just as Chloe loses steam for daydreaming and started staring out the window, lunch arrives to provide a bit of relief.

She begins walking towards the study hall intending to pass lunch playing games on her phone. She rarely feels hungry during school, but she wouldn't have gone for lunch even if she did. The school's lunches were awful even at its best.

The study hall is on the second level in an old room that used to be for the school music orchestra before it got disbanded by lack of funding. Chloe went to the stairwell intending to head right up but stops when sees two girls halfway up rudely blocking the entire stairwell between the two of them. She recognizes them too. Elly and Julie.

Elly is a fairly decent looking blonde with short curls. She thinks of herself as the more intelligent of the two girls and a sort of 'fashionista'. She certainly tries to present herself as one.

On an average day, she has on enough make-up to make herself unrecognizable to her own parents. Her clothing is always a unique blend of stylish, attention grabbing, and vaguely foreign, but they all share one thing in common: they're disgustingly expensive. The cost of the blouse she's wearing today must be enough to feed a family for a month.

Even her wealth and knowledge of make-up application can't hide her face, though. Chloe caught it a few times after a P.E. swimming class. Elly's face is slightly pocked and it causes her great stress.

Thing is it doesn't really diminish her appearance. She still looks sweetly cute and pretty. She doesn't think so, though, and her heavy usage of make-up is, in part, to hide her own face.

Now Julie…Julie is plain…wow. She is the real 'bombshell' of the two, so to speak.

Julie is also a blonde with curls like Elly, but her hair flows past her shoulders. Her eyes are naturally narrow and slanted giving her a sort of sultry look. Her clothes are equally expensive and stylish as Elly's – likely because the latter purchased it for her – though she seem to prefer a simple stylish sweater and her normal wear of a short skirt.

To add to this look, Julie is also gifted physically. She's well endowed enough to have every boy within viewing distance gaping. She's also tall, though not as much as Chloe, and this allows her to have long, enticing legs to show off, which may actually be why she often wears skirts. So that she could show off her legs.

Or possibly her butt. Her height combined with the short length of her skirt makes seeing up her skirt fairly easy, _especially_ when she's standing halfway up a stairwell as she is doing now. This is normal behavior for her. The shameless girl once wore an equally short skirt to school during a blistering cold day in winter.

Elly and Julie have been friends for perhaps a year only, but the two stuck together like glue. Chloe passes them every now and then and she had always been of the mind that they're together because Elly is rich and wants a minion while Julie is poor(er) and needs a master. Like two peas in a pod.

Though they normally ignore each other, they have encounters every now and then in which the two girls would sneer at Chloe and she would return it with her own.

Knowing this, she pre-emptively puts on a sneer before addressing them, "Ladies, do you mind?"

They had been the only ones there and Chloe wasn't exactly silent when walking towards them. They knew she had been standing there, yet ignored her until she said something. Afterwards, Elly looks aggravatingly down her nose as if wondering what insect is trying to talk to her. Julie had her back to Chloe and she looks over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow seeming equally haughty as her friend.

"What the hell do you want?" Elly tries to put as much disdain in her voice as possible.

"To get to study hall. Can you let me pass?"

"We were here first. You want to get pass? Wait until we leave."

"All you have to do is move aside for a moment, Elly. You're seriously going to block me just to be a bitch?"

Elly's eyes turn cold. "Who the hell are you to talk to me like that? Who the hell are you to tell me to move aside?"

Chloe clenches her teeth. "Who the hell am I? I'm the girl that sat beside you in class for months now."

"I don't remember. I guess you're just unremarkable."

"Fine. Whatever. Just let me through."

"Unremarkable people don't get to demand anything from me. Go use another stairwell."

"No!" Chloe shouts. "Why should I have to go somewhere else when you can move a few feet for less than ten seconds? What makes you so remarkable? You're not any different than me."

"I'm completely different from you!" Elly sneers.

Signaling to her friend, she and Julie walks down a few steps encircling Chloe who tries to back away only to suddenly find herself trapped. She raises her arms a little wary of what they plan to do.

"See this?" Elly says pointing to her blouse. "This is what makes me remarkable. Your clothes disgust me. Where did you get them? At the discount section of Walmart?"

She flushes in anger partially because Elly guessed correctly. The t-shirt she has on now was bought by Joyce and she even bragged about what a great deal she got for it from Walmart.

"Shut up! You may have expensive clothes, but that doesn't mean anything. All the clothes and make-up in the world won't hide that fucked up face of yours."

It was a low blow but it was also the only weapon Chloe knew against Elly. As expected, when she brought it up, the other girl turns purple with anger.

"An oversized amazon with the body of a little boy shouldn't talk shit about other people's looks." Elly hisses eyes narrowed. "I have a boyfriend. What kind of guy are you going to pick up? Some creepy old man who has a thing for young boys?"

A return insult about her own body is only to be expected and she tells herself that Elly is just pissed off and doesn't know anything, but she still couldn't stop herself from feeling heated.

"She'll be lucky to even get that." Julie remarks casually joining in for the first time. "Elly's right. You have no right to be talking shit about her looks."

"I didn't start this. You-"

Chloe's defense is interrupted by Elly. " _You_ tried to be pushy and get your way when we were just minding our own business talking to each other. Don't blame us for the things _you_ did."

With a last sneer, the two girls walk off down the hallways leaving Chloe a shaken mess. Her eyes burn a little and she feels shame knowing those two assholes were able to do that to her. Angrily wiping away at her eyes, she walks up the stairs continuing on her way to study hall. Inside, she heads straight for an empty corner table ignoring the few other kids already there.

A bone deep exhaustion overtakes her and she lays her head down intending to sleep away her worries. Hardly a few minutes after she sits down, though, the bell suddenly rings letting everyone know lunch period has ended. Chloe groans feeling the heaviness of her eyelids going into her shoulders making it harder to get back up. The argument with Elly and Julie took so long that she ending up missing most of the lunch period which wasn't long to begin with.

She lies still for another minute or so listening to the other students shuffle out. When the sound began to die down, she knew she couldn't delay any longer and puts a great effort into rising up. Feeling a little unsteady from exhaustion, she slowly trudges to the next class.

Making it in just as the bell rings again indicating class starting, she sits back her normal seat at the far rear. Ms. Richards, their English teacher, is surprisingly the last to get in. Normally, she would have been here already but, today, she is a little late and her features are upset and her face is flushed. Her eyes harden a little and she straightens herself when she turns towards them.

"Today, we are going to talk about how to properly write a paper that requires citation. I recently had all of you chose a subject to write about – namely your dreams – and, as I told all of you, a paper needs to be written on the steps needed to be taken to achieve them."

A small yawn earns the offending student a sharp look from her which quickly cuts off the yawn. She pauses a moment running her eyes along the rest of the class as if daring them to try to interrupt her.

"We already went through how to research, how to look up information, but now you need to learn how to properly cite your sources." She continues as if never stopped. "Telling me what your parents say or what you saw on TV is not acceptable. You have to look up first or second hand sources regarding information about your dreams and you need to cite from whom and where you got the information."

Ms. Richards' eyes land on one of the boys sitting in the middle row. His eyes widen seeing her look at him and the air in the class changes a little knowing what's coming next.

English as operated by Ms. Richards is a class that demands excellence more from those that seems unwilling than from those that are. Early in the year, after allowing them all to choose their seats, she stood at the front of the class giving a sardonic smile.

She stated plainly that she is hopeful to see good work from the students in the rows closest to the front. As for the students in the middle and especially the last rows, she will be calling on them and calling often expecting to receive answers to her questions.

She has held up her promise ever since and her punishment for failed questions is either homework for the entire class earning the student who answered incorrectly hostility from his classmates or personal humiliation from Ms. Richards.

This 'Rule By Fear' culture she nurtured has, of course, made her a figure to be despised by almost all students who has taken her class and many ill-mannered nicknames whispered by students to their friends. If she knows, she doesn't care.

"Dennis." Ms. Richards stands in front of the boy's desk looking directly into his eyes. "I believe your dream was to become a race car driver, am I right?"

"Yes, ma'am." He says quietly.

"Say I am a professional racer who has won multiple championships. I wrote a book informing others how to become a race car driver too and I say that everyone has to get a college degree in 'racing'. How do you tell your teacher this?"

He swallows. "That you, uh, the professional racer told me I have to get a college degree?"

"That's good." She nods. "What if you need to tell your teacher in written form?"

"I say the same thing, just…write it out."

"No!"

She slams her hands on his desk making him and several nearby students jump in their seats. To their surprise – and Dennis' relief – she doesn't remain to inform him why he is wrong, though. Instead, she moves back to the front of the class.

"Dennis is not completely incorrect, but that's understandable. I have not taught him yet. I have not taught any of you yet. To tell me in written form, what he should do is quote me, then beside that quote, include information on who and where he got it from. Just a small note, really."

On the blackboard, she writes the words 'Go to college' and, beside it in parenthesis, she writes her name plus a random number.

"A small note that is taken from the final page at the end of the paper that contains a full listing of all your citations."

Then she writes another line containing her name and a series of other words that seems like jargon to most of the students.

"This-" Ms. Richards pause for dramatic effect. "-is known as the MLA style."

Thus begins her lecture on how to cite the sources they will be using for their paper. This paper, which is supposed to be about their dreams, is due in a little over a week and their teacher have been drilling information on how to write it in every class even as they're already supposed to start on it.

This is another method of hers. She often says that, in writing as with anything else, most errors come from students refusing to double and triple check their work rather than actual lack of knowledge. To demonstrates this and demand 'excellence', she would assign work then make new demands as they go along.

Most of the students bear this in misery turning angry when the new assignment requirements inevitably come. The more clever students would get around this simply by writing a skeleton of their papers then slowly filling it out with more information.

Chloe yawns looking out the window at a tree branch swaying lightly. She belong to another group – the type to wait until Ms. Richards finishes adding requirements, which is typically three days before the assignment is due, then start writing.

For most of the students, this is thought to be impossible because their English papers are usually five to six pages long and this new assignment already has the demand of being minimum seven pages. It still seems like a joke to Chloe.

Their new assignment – like all the others – is supposed to be in a 12-point Times New Roman font, 1" margins, and _double spaced_. So a seven page paper only needs to be about 1,500 words long. To Chloe, that is mind bogglingly easy, especially if they're going to be adding quotes. A few quotes by themselves will probably be one whole page.

That MLA citation thing is new and she isn't exactly sure how to do it. That problem is resolved, though, by the fact that she won't have to. She is willing to bet that she could find a website that will do the citations for her and all she has to do is input the information.

Vaguely, she wonders if Ms. Richards knows this, but doubts it. The woman is older and seems a bit of traditional type. What are the chances that she's familiar with computers? Even if she is, why would it matter whether Chloe does it by hand or if a website formats the information for her?

So it seems Chloe is completely covered. She'll finish the paper in no time and the Internet has her covered for doing that citation thing.

Checking the clock noting that class will only last another twenty minutes, she continues staring at the tree branch. She might have laughed at herself for staring at it for so long, but there was nothing else.

Her English class is located on the second level of their school and it faces the school stadium where baseball games are held. There's no baseball game now, so she has a choice of either staring at the empty stadium or watching the tree branch near the window. The tree branch won because at least it moves.

The branch taps against the windowsill bringing Chloe's attention to the small crack visible there. Her school isn't in top shape nor has it been for a very long time. This lack of care is visible in the various cracks, broken cement sidewalks, and the very dilapidated stadium her window is facing.

It might not be the school's fault. From what she heard, they're barely keeping up teacher salaries as it is and they already had to shut down numerous programs. The music-

A hand slamming onto her table startles Chloe so badly that she tries to jump backward forgetting that she's sitting in a chair. Her feet catches on the chair's legs making her topple over along with the chair. Frightened, she looks up into the cold face of Ms. Richards, and loses her breath.

Her teacher sighs exasperatedly. "Get up, Chloe."

Swallowing, Chloe twists her body to lift herself back up. As she does so, she hears the snickering of her classmates making her cheeks burn. Putting her chair upright, she takes a seat hesitantly staring up at her teacher who returns the stare emotionlessly.

"If you're finished making a spectacle of yourself, Chloe, lets get back to class, shall we? Or was my lecture boring you?"

"No, ma'am." She says quietly.

"It wasn't more interesting than whatever you were staring at outside the window, apparently." She glances out the window. "Which means you either found the empty stadium or that tree more worthwhile to pay attention to."

More snickering. She hated whoever is laughing and wanted to glare at them and let them know they could easily be in her position too.

She is too afraid to look away, however. Her chest tightens painfully as she looks into Ms. Richards' eyes and her teacher returns an unsympathetic look fully intent on forcing her to go through the next few moments as slowly as possible.

"Or maybe you believe you know what I'm talking about already?" Ms. Richards continues. "I think now is a good time for a question, class. Chloe, what are you supposed to do with the titles of the works you cite?"

She didn't know the answer exactly, but there were any number of responses she could have given. Even if it was wrong, she wanted to at least take a guess and maybe get it right.

Her breath catches in her throat and she couldn't seem to get any words out, though. The tightness in her chest constricts so badly that she feels like she could barely breathe let alone speak. At that point, even if she could get herself to speak, Chloe doesn't think she would have been able to think of even the simplest response.

The school bell rings indicating class ends. Chloe remains frozen in place, though, and the other students continue staring without moving either.

Ms. Richards sighs in disgust taking a few steps back. "The answer, Chloe, is capitalization. You capitalize every word in the titles of the works you cite." She turns away and walks to the front. "We will continue the discussion on the MLA format tomorrow. For now, I will just remind you that it is only nine more days until your assignment is due. If you haven't already, get started on it. Dismissed."

The students rapidly gather up their things and makes for the door. Chloe sits paralyzed watching them do this until she is able to force her hands into moving again. Throwing her books into her backpack, she walks out the room keeping her head down as she goes to her next class.

There. She sits quietly keeping her eyes forward though her look is unfocused and she doesn't hear what the next teacher is saying. Even if she did, she wouldn't be able to make sense of it anyway as her mind is so jumbled up with differing thoughts.

All she could think about is Ms. Richards, her cold eyes, her classmates' laughing, and her utter failure before. Her stomach roils inside of her channeling her feelings.

What makes it hurt so much more is that she didn't deserve it at all. Yeah, she didn't pay attention but why does that matter? She always turned in her homework. When she got them back, they were A's and B's too. On her tests, the lowest she ever got was 87%. Why did her not paying attention for a few minutes make all of that meaningless? Did she deserve to get embarrassed and laughed at for that?

At that moment, she feels a great sense of hatred well up inside of her. For Ms. Richards, English class, her classmates, Arcadia Junior High, Arcadia Bay, the entire world. The hatred is intense and the adrenaline that floods her makes her want to jump up and start throwing fists in an attempt to fight anything and everything that makes her feel that way.

It passes, though. It passes and it leaves her feeling dizzy and exhausted. She wanted to crawl into a hole somewhere, lie still, and just fall asleep forgetting everything else about her life.

The class passes by in a blur without her hearing a word or, by the end, even knowing if the teacher talked about anything new. She only learned that they had homework at all when the teacher made the front row pass back sheet containing problems that they're to finish and return the next day.

She throws the sheet in her backpack and, still numb, walks to her final class of the day. Thankfully, it is also, by far, the easiest class and one which hardly anyone needed to pay attention to.

The teacher, Mr. Haydock, was already inside when they filed in writing a message on the board. When the bell rings indicating class start, he turns to them smiling pointing to his message which simply asks 'what makes a book a classic?'

Mr. Haydock teaches social studies. This gives him leeway to talk about a wide variety of subjects and he takes full advantage of that by rarely ever covering the subjects most other social studies teachers speak about. The rare times he speaks of classic subjects, he rarely ever talks about them normally.

One time, he brought up the American Revolution and didn't talk about a single battle. Instead, he asked the class why the war happened, what would have happened if there was no war, then proceeded to spend the following three days painting a picture of what the present would look like if the Confederacy had won without every bothering to talk about the war itself.

When one student angrily asked why he didn't talk at least talk about Abraham Lincoln, he responded saying they knew him already so why bother bringing him up?

That is one reason why most never try to ask him why he does things.

Today, Mr. Haydock got it into his mind to discuss with his students why some books are considered classics of literature while others aren't. He asks whether dime store romance novels can be considered classics. He tries to argue that many books considered classics today were considered trash when they were released.

Aside from the brief mention of some risqué magazines which he didn't dwell on, most of the students listened with the same dull eyes they give any of their other teachers.

Chloe keeps her eyes forward though she didn't listen anymore than the other students. Every now and then, she glances at the clock wishing it would move a little quicker. When it doesn't, she tries to keep her mind off the day's events and stare at the words on the blackboard without really comprehending it.

When the school bell rings indicating it's finally time to be let out, she heaves a huge sigh internally glad to be able to go. She picks up her backpack and gets up stumbling a bit.

The intense hatred she felt earlier has now long dissipated and is just a memory, but the result exhaustion is still felt heavily inside of her. She groups in with the last remaining students and heads for the door.

"Say, Chloe, do you mind if we chat a bit?"

She stops and turns towards Mr. Haydock as frustration increases her exhaustion. She _knows_ she didn't do anything this time. Besides, he is not the type to punish students anyway. He is more the type to assign what he terms 'fun' homework which involves doing something utterly ridiculous in an attempt to awaken personal intrigue.

Despite knowing that she isn't in trouble, Chloe didn't really want to talk to him. He reminds her of her dad at times and, like her dad, his enthusiasm grates on her.

"Chloe," He begins after the other students all left. "I'm sorry for stopping you when you're probably eager to get home, but I was just a little concerned. See, I noticed you were a little quiet today. Plus, you weren't daydreaming like usual. You just sort of stare ahead like a zombie. It's creepy." He shudders for effect.

This is the other thing she didn't like about him. Also like her dad, he has a habit of prying if he senses trouble. She is not the first he approached like this. She has heard him approaching other students about similar things too and all reacted about as well as she's reacting now.

On some level, she is impressed he is not only familiar enough with her to know what she normally does and paid enough attention to know she isn't doing it, but what should she tell him? That Ms. Richards is a bitch? That her classmates are assholes? That she feels hurt and angry and just wants to sleep the rest of the day away?

"I'm okay."

He nods smiling. "I suppose that's the best answer I could expect. I just wanted to check up on you, Chloe. If you ever need to talk about anything, know that you have a support system in place. Your teachers, the school administration, and our counselors are all readily available."

Chloe nods and leaves. His words roll in her mind a bit but she had no intention of saying anything. What could they really do anyway? Especially when it's a teacher that she had a problem with?

Outside, dark clouds dot the skies and the air smells a little different. Perhaps not too much longer until it begin pouring. Figures this would happen on her birthday when she intends to walk to the Two Whales.

The threat of getting wet didn't bother any of the other students in front of the school. Most had already started trekking home and those remaining were waiting for a ride or simply to chat with their friends. On the lawn near the road, Chloe spots Elly and Julie standing in the arms of their boyfriends Jason and Kenny.

Jason is a fairly good looking blond who hooked up with Elly a few months ago. Maybe he plays baseball or whatever but he definitely never made a team as Chloe never saw him in any of the school's games. He seems nice enough from the few times she heard him talk or pass him in the hallways.

Julie's boyfriend, Kenny, is the opposite. A defining symbol of 'gross'. Julie could have nearly anyone she wanted, so why did she choose _him_? To begin, he is huge and it shows even in his puffy face. Chloe initially thought that maybe he's a really nice or funny guy, but that was promptly proven wrong when she once saw him shove another kid against a locker while passing in the hallway.

He is also disgustingly grabby being known for getting too personal with girls who had nothing to do with him. After he got together with Julie, he backed off on that simply because he now had a willing target for his hands. He's taking full advantage of that allowance even now keeping one of his hands under Julie's skirt and grinning like a stupid animal.

Turning away in disgust, she eyes the other areas hoping to forget the scene. She pauses when her eyes land on Justin. Putting on a smile, she walks over hoping they could chat a bit.

She knew of Justin since she started attending school here, but they only started speaking to each other after working on a project together a year ago and maintained the friendship after it ended. He's always been a bit of a weirdo and he wears large geeky bottle glasses which he said is meant to cover as much of his eyes as possible.

"Hey, Justin, what's up?"

He looks up at her giving a mournful look. "Nothing, really. Just waiting for my mom to come get me."

Justin really doesn't live that far from school. Maybe only a little over a mile. After he almost got into a traffic accident walking out into the streets, his mom has insisted on driving him home everyday. However, she works for nearly an hour longer after school ends so the result is that Justin has to sit around waiting for an extra hour.

He complained of this only to have her cuff him on the head saying to use that extra hour to study or read a book. Having no interest in either, he spends his time watching traffic and other students getting to walk home.

"That sucks." Chloe sympathizes. She struggles briefly trying to think of something to talk about to keep up the conversation. "How was school?"

It is a lame topic and one she didn't want to talk about, but it was all she knew to bring up that they could share mutually.

Before this, she tried talking to him about comics but it turns out he has little interest in it. The few TV shows she watches aren't ones he's interested in either. Chloe doesn't even have hobbies she could use to chat about. By comparison, Justin has one hobby and she knows as little about it as he does about comics.

"Stupid like always. I did like P.E. because I got to talk to Mick a bit, though. I've been learning how to skateboard, right? And he's showing me how to modify the truck so that I could do corners and flips easier."

This was the one hobby. She tried to keep up but is immediately confused. She didn't know what trucks had to do with a skateboard or what kind of trick a 'corner' is. He did say before that he's been getting into skateboard which looks kind of weird for a kid like Justin, but he says he enjoys it.

Problem is that she never did understand much of what he talks about and this is a problem because his conversation drifts more and more frequently to it. Instead, she has to settle for listening to him and hoping he doesn't ask questions that she couldn't answer.

"That's cool." She responds. "Are you going to try it here while waiting for your mom?"

"I think so. I have nothing else to do anyway."

The conversation dies off again. Chloe thinks about her birthday and how her parents might be a bit happy if Justin comes.

Only thing is that he never accepts her invitations. She asked him if he wanted to hang out several times, but each time, he either describes himself as too lazy or more interested in skateboarding. This is strange because the one time she followed him to the park to see it and he actually spent more time tweaking parts of his skateboard than actually skateboarding.

She also wonders what kind of birthday parties Justin has. Is it the normal kind where he is at his house surrounded by families and friends? It would make sense as this is the kind everybody has. She alone would sit alone in a diner booth surrounded by strangers who wouldn't know or care that it's her birthday.

No, perhaps it simply wouldn't work out to ask him to come.

"Oh, that's cool. Maybe I'll come check out your moves sometimes." Chloe says smiling lightly. "Anyway, I gotta go now. Talk to you later, alright?"

He nods. "See ya."

Only a few feet ahead, she suddenly feels a few droplets of rain land on her head. Behind her, Justin groans audibly and he gets up running inside the school to wait there. She didn't think he really had to. It was only a few drops and it might be a while before it really starts pouring.

Chloe continues along the sidewalk in the direction of town. When she reaches a familiar area, she steps off and follows a grassy path eventually disappearing in-between a cluster of trees.

Arcadia Bay is a fairly urbanized place, but it also has a large natural aspect to it. In-between roads, stoplights, houses, and stores, there are small sections of trees which are remnants of what Arcadia Bay must have looked like before people got here. Other areas had streams, overreaching hills, and, sometimes, just large open fields that would be full of tall grass and flowers during summer.

The local government turned some of the better looking places into public parks and the larger places into designated hunting or fishing areas. The places in-between those, though, are ignored and left to the whims of the public.

Kids would sometimes explore and play in them, which is how Chloe found this particularly special place she's heading towards. Snaking and twisting around the trees surrounding the area, she quickly arrives at a clearing containing the object of her search: Her home away from home.

Most wouldn't really think of it as special. After all, it's just a cave nestled in a small hill.

A small cave at that. It is so small that you can see the entirety of it even from the edge of the clearing, which is understandable as the hill it is in is barely half as tall as the trees around her. Any bigger and the hill might collapse into itself due to lack of foundation.

Chloe throws her backpack in, gets on her hands and knees, and crawl inside. The cave is supposed to be big enough for a child to fit inside without too much trouble, but Chloe is unusually tall and she has to lie down on her back to avoid craning her neck.

This special place has been named 'Hillside Home' by her.

There are probably dozens of places just like this one, but she likes the Hillside Home because it's hers. She likes the solace it offers. During greener times, the trees surrounding the clearing would be so thick with fresh growth that it would block the entirety of Arcadia Bay. The sky would be so thoroughly blocked that, even during the height of the afternoon, only a few slim lines of sunlight would make it through.

Right now, as with much of the rest of the town, the trees are still lifeless and she is able to see bits and pieces of the town through them. Due to the dark clouds overhead, it isn't as bright as it could be but it is still far brighter than it would be at other times.

She turns onto her side getting comfortable. She stares ahead allowing the silence of the place to foster random thoughts through her mind. It's therapeutic in a way. Here, she would think her most troubling thoughts and remain numb to them. Hillside Home never helped, not even once, in solving her problems but it allows her to think about them and deaden herself to them. At least while she's there.

Chloe imagines Hillside Home as a sort of euphemism of her. Here, the cave represents her own heart and the hill around it is her body. The hill and cave bears all the beating – from the rain, snow, rocks, sun – while she remains safely caged inside protected and merely watching. Here, she is just an observer. Not quite a dead object but not a living one either. She lying there and looking nowhere.

There, her mind turns, and the memories come back. It is unsurprising that the first thing she thinks of is her English class. Whereas the memory stings and made her bitter before, she now thinks of it with detachment. Burying the angry face of Ms. Richards and the laughing caricatures of her classmates, Chloe instead thinks of the assignment.

Her paper about her dreams still seems as simple as ever. For her paper, she chose the subject to be 'astronaut'. It seems like an easy choice to make and she already knew how to write it. She will look up Neil Armstrong's history, note his credentials, and basically use it as backdrop for what she needs to do to achieve the same thing. For her citations, she will look up random quotes from NASA or whatever.

It's all nonsense, really. She has utterly no desire to be an astronaut. She simply picked it because it seems like an easy thing to write about and a common dream.

Chloe might have really picked her dream to write about, but the thing is that she didn't really have one. She didn't know what she wanted to be when she grew up or what she wants to achieve.

Sure, she sometimes likes to imagine herself in certain ways during her daydreams. A few times, she imagines herself as an author writing a book that everyone loves and gush about. Other times, she would be a comic book author who just completed her magnum opus that changed the entire comic industry for the better. Things like that. That's all they were, though – just daydreams.

Her parents sometimes talk to her about her future and how she should nurture her 'prospects' as they call it. Her mom would insist she finds a job doing what she's good at while her dad would say she should learn to do what there are jobs for.

She would like to draw. Not be a painter or anything like that, but maybe draw comics? Or maybe the pictures for books? Something like that. Only problem is that she's terrible at drawing. Stick figures are about the best she can pull off. She took an art class once but the teacher was more interested in explaining the intricacies and beauty of art rather than teaching how to do it.

Well, if drawing doesn't work out, she can always work in a diner like her mom, though maybe not one that wants her to be there for so long and so often. She doesn't want to spend her entire life working, though the thought of not working also terrifies her. It seems better to be overworked than to live a meaningless life.

Trailing off that line of thinking, Elly and Julie appears in her head and she thinks of their features robotically. Their phantom faces smirks at her.

She sees Elly – make up and nice clothes – looking at her and flipping her hair showing off. Julie is swaying her hips lightly making her skirt sway along as if in mockery of Chloe's less pronounced curves.

Kenny appears behind Julie and his hands are suddenly all over her. Chloe feels mild revulsion even knowing that all this is merely a result of her overactive imagination…but it is her imagination using _real life_ as an inspiration.

He would hurt her one day. Chloe can tell just from his sheer sleaziness. Maybe he's secretly a girl beater type or he's a cheater or both. Whatever it is, he'll hurt her one day and, heaven forbid, she might cry her eyes out over that animal.

Chloe can see herself walking up and laughing at Julie only to feel pity for her and perhaps give her a helping hand. The two of them might come to understand each other and even become friends like something from a cartoon show. Chloe would show her great comic books and games while Julie would make her wear skirts so that they'd have matching clothes.

The fall of a few droplets interrupts her flow of thought. Then several more. As if opening a faucet, the clearing becomes drench with the onslaught of millions of droplets of water. The long threatened rain has finally arrived.

Hillside Home provides a capable shelter from the weather. Chloe is able to lie comfortably inside protected by at least a foot from getting hit by the rain. She stares silently as the surrounding trees turn dark from being soaked. Arcadia Bay, peeking in-between the trees, is silent with no cars passing by. The rain has taken over the town.

Despite the exhaustion she felt for a good part of the day, she finds she couldn't get to sleep. Instead, she lies there using her arms as a pillow watching the rain as it lulls her into a sort of trance where she simply stares without any thought.

Some time later when the rain lets off into a sort of light mist, she takes out her phone and glances at the screen seeing it's nearly time to go to the Two Whales. Getting up on her legs while keeping low to avoid bumping her head, she grabs her backpack and slowly hobbles out. The ground is damp and a little muddy. She sinks a little into the ground just standing still.

Dusting herself off, she shoves her hands in her pockets and walks through the trees heading to the Two Whales.

The roads are mostly empty, though a car quietly passes by every now and then. Chloe didn't have a jacket with her but uses her backpack as a sort of umbrella. It didn't really stop her from getting wet but it seems better than nothing. It's a good thing it's no longer raining as badly otherwise Joyce would tear her to pieces if she goes to the Two Whales soaked from head to toe, though she will probably still get a tongue lashing anyway.

Hillside Home resides between her school and the main part of town where the Two Whales is so she didn't really have to walk that far to get there. The length of her walk came more from her sluggish gait than from distance and, despite that, she is still a quarter of an hour early when she arrived.

Inside, there were only a small set of customers totaling only six. Three of them – familiar faces – were sitting at the counter stools, three not so familiar faces were sitting at a window seat. Perhaps the rain had dwindled the number of people down a little bit. Chloe is grateful, really. She didn't really want many people to witness this spectacle she's about to go through.

To the right of the entrance at the far end, there is a window tablet that is lightly decorated with some colorful ties and even a floating balloon wishing happy birthday. Going over, she sees a card on the table with fancy cursive saying 'Happy Birthday, Chloe'.

She sits down at her designated table quietly placing her backpack down on the floor. Resting her head on her palms, she stares out the window seeing rain slide down the glass and wishing a little that she was still doing this at Hillside Home instead.

" _Chloe!_ " Joyce had come out and noticed her now damp form. "You're wet! Why didn't you use an umbrella to come here? You know we keep one in the closet."

She didn't want to tell her mom that she hadn't actually gone home at all. Her parents already think she has problems making friends when she really doesn't. What would they think if they find out she sometimes goes and sit alone in a cave?

"I forgot." She mumbles.

Joyce sighs exasperatedly. "Well, you came a little early. Why don't you take some time to dry yourself in the bathroom with the towels before you father arrives?"

Her mom walks back into the kitchen area. Chloe drags herself off her seat and walks towards the bathroom in the other end. Some of the patrons at the counters glance at her, though the few at the window tables didn't care.

As she passes, the sound of a hushed argument gets her attention. A woman – long dark brown hair, sleek pretty face that has light make up, and beautiful curved eyes – is muttering something rapidly to a man – short light brown hair and a slight 5 o'clock shadow – who tries to return some words.

Chloe didn't really hear what they were saying nor did she really want to. They only got her attention at all because the diner is so quiet and the other patrons were eating in silence while they argued leaving their plates nearly untouched.

She continues around the counter end to go into the bathroom. Just as she push open the door and walks inside, though, another person comes out of the last stall carrying some kind of stuffed animal. Startled, Chloe stops and stares at her. Her own stare causes the other to return the gaze.

It is a girl maybe around Chloe's age. She has light brown, messy bob hairstyle which matches poorly with her dull, blue eyes and pale skin. Her face is small and contains a bit of babyfat which actually works in her favor to make her look cute. The girl is short reaching up to about Chloe's chest, but that may be more because Chloe is tall.

Her attire is tan slacks and a hilariously oversized light blue puffy coat that manages to hide her entire midsection, a part of her neck, and even stretches down to a little past her butt.

The strangest part of the girl is her stuffed animal. It appears to be some kind of panda bear doll which is nearly as large as her entire upper body. She hugs it closely looking at Chloe from behind the stuffed bear.

Chloe stares into her eyes and she returns the look. Her pink lips are pursed a bit and it gives her face a sort of nervous appearance. Realizing that she may, in fact, be scaring her, Chloe clears her throat wanting to say something.

"Sorry." She says not even knowing why she's apologizing. "I just wanted to use the bathroom."

The other girl nods. "I'm…I'm done. I was j-just going to wash my hands."

She turns slowly going to the sink and turning on the faucet. Even the vibes she gives off shows how nervous she is. Trying to look as if she's really just going about her business, Chloe goes to the towel dispenser and pulls the handle rapidly getting as much towel as she could. Then she uses it to dry herself starting with her.

Hearing a little giggle, Chloe looks at the other girl who blushes. "S-sorry. I didn't mean to laugh."

Looking at the towels in her hands, Chloe smiles. "It's okay. It is kind of funny. I stupidly walk through the rain and my mom got mad. She told me to dry myself in here." She glances at the towel dispenser. "Oh, did you need a towel?"

She nods. "Yes, please."

Chloe pulls the handle and tears a towel out handing it to her. As she dries her hand silently, Chloe takes the initiative to introduce herself.

"I'm Chloe Price, by the way."

The other girl stares up at her and her eyes lightens a little as if the introduction means Chloe is no longer a scary stranger. She gives a smile which makes her face a little prettier.

"My name is Maxine Caulfield."

Chloe tries to give a sincere smile. "Are you just passing by here, Maxine? I live here."

She had expected to hear the other girl is just making a stop to eat in Arcadia Bay and was going to maybe Portland, Seattle, or somewhere in California. To her surprise, Maxine shakes her head 'no'.

"I live here too. My mom didn't want to cook today so we came here to eat dinner."

"Oh, that's cool." Chloe nods. "I'm here for my, uh, well, my birthday. I'm turning twelve in a few days, but I'm celebrating my birthday early. I know it's a little silly to have it here, but I guess I'm a little silly."

She laughs nervously wondering if the other girl will think she's a loser now, but Maxine didn't seem to care that she's having her birthday here. Instead, she looks at Chloe with wide eyes.

"You're twelve? Wow, you're really big!"

She stiffens a bit, but Chloe couldn't find it in her to really get upset when Maxine is looking at her so innocently. She does decide to return the favor, though.

Smiling, she says playfully, "Yeah, I am. You're pretty small yourself, shortcake. When you're near my age, though, who knows? You might be just as big."

"But I'm already near your age. I'm ten."

"Ten?" Chloe reels in surprise. "You're ten and you live here? But then you would be in my school. Do you go to Arcadia Junior High?"

"No, I go to Hoover Middle School."

Chloe had never heard of Hoover Middle School. Is Arcadia Bay actually a lot bigger than she thought it was and Maxine lives so far away that she has to go to a different school altogether? That would also explain why Chloe has never seen her before despite living here all her life.

"Huh, that's weird. I guess that's why we've never seen each other." Chloe turns her attention to the stuffed animal. "Say, what's with the bear you're holding?"

Maxine holds up the animal. "This is Panda Bear. I take him a lot of places with me. My mom doesn't like him, but my dad lets me keep him." Her smile slips a bit. "My mom says stuffed animals are for little kids and I guess she's right. Still, I like him because he makes me feel better."

"He's cute." Chloe says. "I like him too."

"Thanks, Chloe. I like you." Maxine says making her blush. "I have to get back to my parents now, but I hope I see you again."

"Same here, Maxine."

She leaves. Chloe watches her go feeling a bit sad. In the short time they've met, she grew to like the other girl a little. She's a bit strange and childish, but she's nice.

Feeling dry enough, she throws the towels she's been using into the trash bin and leaves the bathroom. Outside, she passes by the couple arguing before and pauses just slightly when she sees Maxine sitting beside the woman. So it turns out those two were her parents which make sense when Chloe compares Max's hair with theirs. Maxine meets her eyes smiling and Chloe smiles in turn before passing.

She returns to her table and slumps down sighing. She struggles internally wishing someone she knew was here so that they could talk about something but also simultaneously happy that they aren't here to see this.

She wishes her dad would get here already so that they can get this all over with.

"Now birthday girl." Her mom comes back out the kitchen carrying a small cake with twelve, unlit candles on it. "Here's your cake. Your dad just called me and says he'll be here in a few minutes. _Do not_ touch this cake until he gets here, hear?"

She nods as Joyce places down the cake in front of her along with several clean plates then leaves again. She looks at the cake. It is mostly white frosting, but on top were cherries and slices of banana. The candles were aligned in a circle around colorful words that spells out 'Happy Birthday, Chloe!'

William comes in through the diner doors a few minutes later carrying a wrapped box. Spotting her, he puts on a big smile and comes over plopping himself across from her. He stares at the cake with exaggerated wide eyes.

"Oh my goodness, look at this beautiful cake!" He sneaks a bit of frosting with his pinky and licks it. "Delish!"

"I saw that!" Joyce says coming out of the back carrying another wrapped box. "It is Chloe's day so she gets the first bite, William."

"Oh right, right, my bad. Lets get this party started then, eh?"

Her mom pulls out a lighter and lights each candle up. Once finished, William scoots over allowing her to sit down by him. The two stare at Chloe smiling waiting for her.

Chloe puts on a small smile. "Do I blow it out right away?"

"Well, of course- oh, wait, wait." William palms himself. "Joyce, we almost forgot the song. We have to sing her happy birthday."

She immediately regrets saying anything. "No, wait, I think it's better if I just blow it out right away."

"Actually, I think your father is right. This is a special day." Joyce says. "It wouldn't feel complete if we didn't at least sing to our little girl. You're not going to have a second 12th birthday so we have to make sure it's right, Chloe."

"We may not have the best singing voices." William says. "But we'll do our damndest. Now then."

He clears his throat and leads the song starting with a slow, precise 'happy' as Joyce joins in. Chloe feels her face heats up and she can sense the stares of the other customers on her. She keeps her eyes on the candles on the cake.

When her parents finish the last part of the song, they drag out the 'you' and increase their volume. Hearing the song end, Chloe smiles up shakily at them, then leans in to blow out the candles. Only afterwards did she remember that she was supposed to make a wish too, but she didn't mind too much. There's no point to it anyway.

"Chloe, open my present first." Joyce says.

Her mom hands her a small simple box wrapped in red paper. She slowly unwrap it at the easier part then opts to tear it when it becomes too difficult to unwrap. Opening the brown box inside, Chloe finds a battery operated lava lamp and a pack of AAA batteries.

She smiles up at Joyce, "Thanks, mom. I like it."

"I had hoped you would. I used to love those things when I was a kid." Joyce smiles in turn. "How about you two spend some time together and enjoy the cake. I'll have to do some work around here, but I'll stop by every now and then."

Joyce departs heading behind the counter and picking up a pot of coffee. She says some things to one of the men at the counter stools and refills his mug before disappearing into the kitchen again. Chloe watches her leave.

"Hey, don't forget me, kiddo." William grins. "Your mom's gift is going to be hard to beat, but I have something pretty cool too."

He holds out his box which is wrapped in a teal color. She doesn't even bother to properly unwrap this one instead choosing to tear it apart from the onset. Inside is a branded box labeled 'bluetooth speakers' which Chloe reads in a bit of confusion.

"Bluetooth speakers? I didn't expect this." She says giving William a small smile. She says playfully. "I can't wait to use it. Do you think Joyce would mind if I deafen everyone in here?"

"Yes, she would, young lady." William says laughing. "Besides, that thing uses a rechargeable battery. I think you'll have to charge it up first before using it."

"Then the ears of everyone here have been saved. For the time being."

"Thank you for your kindness, your majesty." William bows then holds out a knife. "Now would you like to have some cake?"

She places Joyce's and William's gifts to the side, then takes the knife. She cuts out a slice placing it on one of the plates Joyce gave and hands it to her father. Then she cuts out a slice for herself too.

William eats out a large piece with a fork then moans exaggeratedly while chewing it as if it's the best thing he ever ate. Chloe takes a small bite and chews more slowly not really feeling hungry.

Swallowing, her father turns to her, "I can't believe it's your birthday already. You're twelve now. Well, in a few days really, but…you know what I mean." He sighs a little. "You're growing so fast. Before we know it, you'll be going off to college, seeing the world, and eventually celebrating the 12th birthday of your daughter too."

She listens silently wondering what her father is getting at.

"Chloe, I really love you, kid." He says ruffling her head. "I wish we could spend more time together before you're an adult, but, you know, life sometimes doesn't work that way. I'm just happy we get any time together at all."

She didn't understand why life has to work the way it does instead of the way they want, but she didn't verbalize her thoughts. William smiles down at her then takes another large bite of his cake nearly finished already and tries to discretely glance at his watch.

Chloe knew he is going to have to get back to work soon. Glancing outside, she sees the rain diminished a lot though it is still going. She decides now is a good a time as any to bring this night to an end.

"Say, dad, I walked here and got pretty wet, so mom got mad at me." She begins. "I was wondering if you could drive me home before going back to work?"

"I'll be more than happy to. When did you…?"

"Now is best, I think."

"Then thy chariot doth await!" He smiles. "Just let me tell your mother."

Her request means he gets to go back to work earlier so he is all too happy to comply not caring about the details. She knew this when she asked figuring they'll both be done a favor.

William goes into the back of the diner. Chloe shoves her gifts into her backpack and gets off the seat. He returns a minute later with her mom in tow carrying a box with her.

She picks up the cake and the unfinished slices and slips them into the box. Taping it closed, she hands it to Chloe.

"Your dad tells me he's driving you home to avoid the rain. That's a good idea." Joyce leans over a bit kissing her cheek. "Have a safe trip home and happy birthday, Chloe."

"Thanks, mom. Don't work too hard, alright?"

"No promises there."

Joyce kisses William on the cheek too before leaving. Her father nods at her and leads the way to the door as she follows. He holds open the exit door for her while electronically unlocking his car for her to run to. Chloe gets ready to dash out.

"Wait, Chloe!"

She stops in her tracks and turns around. Maxine runs up to her smiling a shyly. Behind her, her parents are watching silently eyeing Chloe and William with confusion. Her own father is equally confused by Maxine's appearance. The small girl holds up a simple pencil case with a few pens and pencils inside.

"I wanted to give you this. For your birthday." She clarifies. "Happy 12th birthday."

Chloe stands there a little surprised. Gathering herself, she takes the pencil case slowly feeling a mixture of elation and warmth from the gift even if it's something so simple. She smiles at the other girl.

"Thanks, Maxine. I'll…I'll be sure to use it."

Maxine smiles taking a few steps back before turning to go back to her table. Chloe looks down at the pencil case in her hands again before tucking it into her pockets to ensure it doesn't get wet. Then she dashes for the car jumping in. Her father comes in a few minutes later, starts up the vehicle, and they leave.

Even by foot, going back to their house didn't take very long. By car, they get there within minutes. Just as he stops in front of their door, though, her dad calls out to her.

"So Maxine, huh?" He says with a grin. "If you had a friend there, why didn't you invite her to sit at the table with you and offered her some cake?"

Chloe swallows. "We just met today. In the diner. We talked a bit and stuff and I told her I was having my birthday. I guess she decided to give me a gift."

He nods. "It's small, but it's the thought that counts."

"No, I like it." Chloe says. "I really do, dad."

And she means it. She hadn't expected anything from anyone beside her parents, so when a girl she just met decides to stop her just to give her a present, it feels…nice. Like someone is thinking of her.

"That's good, sweetheart. Well, we're here now, so off you go."

She nods and makes to open the door. She pauses, though, and looks thoughtful.

"Say, dad, do you know Hoover Middle School?"

He blinks. Looking thoughtful, he says, "I heard the name somewhere before but I'm not familiar with it. Why's that?"

"Nothing, really. I just heard the name somewhere and got curious."

She opens the door and dashes out before William got too questioning. He watches her from the car to make sure she gets inside the house fine and drives off just as she gets the door opened. Inside, she puts the cake in the fridge and runs upstairs to her room.

Taking the gifts out of backpack, she places them inside her closet then sits her backpack near the door to her room. Grabbing a manga, she flops onto her bed and flips to the first page. She had actually finished reading this volume already, but the next one isn't slated for a few more months so she has to keep re-reading until then.

Not that it matters either way as her mind wasn't really on the manga. A lot of other things were. Her birthday, her parents, Elly and Julie, Ms. Richards, and…Maxine. When she and the other girl parted, Chloe had thought that would be it. To think that she would stop her on the way out just to give a present for her birthday.

Still, nothing has really changed. She thought their departure would be it simply for the fact that their lives must move in such a way that they're not likely to ever meet again. She knows they don't go to the same school. They must not even live in the same area of Arcadia Bay if they managed to not see each other for so long. Regardless of the reason, they're not likely to see each other again.

Chloe felt sad at the thought for a moment, but didn't dwell on it too much. No point in doing so for a one time meeting that lasted maybe only twenty minutes. She tries to take her mind off things and refocus on her manga.

When, ten minutes later, she still has not turned a page and Maxine's face pops in her mind again, Chloe sighs irritably and throws the manga onto the floor. She turns the lights off and nestles into her bed figuring that she's been awake too damn long. It's a miracle she remained up as long as she did considering all that happened today.

Soon, everything will return to normal. Dull, boring, but normal.


	2. Chapter 02

** Chapter 02 **

Chloe once read in a health brochure that the average American woman could expect to live to be 80-years-old.

At the time, that sounded like forever to her and she knew that many people live far longer than that. It later occurs to her, though, that perhaps people need that long in order to live properly.

Her math teacher used to say that life is all about experiences good and bad alike. Not having either means you're essentially not living at all. She didn't really know how to feel about that at the time, but a question struck her about whether the experience has to be good or bad specifically? Cam life can be about _neutral_ experiences too?

When she travels to the store with her mom to buy food, does that count as an experience? Can she still call it 'living' if she watched a cartoon while eating a bag of chips? She wouldn't really call those good or bad, but she does them so often that she thought they might count.

If it _has_ to be good or bad, does it have to be _really_ good or bad? Like sometimes she would be walking along and suddenly finds a quarter on the ground. She would be happy, but it is soon forgotten. Does it still count as an experience?

Chloe would be very sad if it has to be memorable because there's just so much she can't remember.

She still remembers her birthday at the Two Whales, Ms. Richards' anger at her, and Justin's falling over while trying to do a trick on his modded skateboard, but not much else. She doesn't really remember much of what happened in her classes, her home life, or even what she ate. Why bother to?

Some people want to know, though. When they happen to see each other, her parents would ask her. Her teachers sometimes ask. Even Justin might ask when he gets bored.

She just tells them whatever comes to mind. That she got an 'A' on that dream paper assignment for Ms. Richards and how Mr. Haydock is talking to her class about the importance of tea in history. They would congratulate her on the paper and maybe muse jokingly about tea and that'll be the end of it.

Which she is grateful for, really, because she has nothing else to talk about.

Chloe's life has become a series of days that bears so much resemblance to each other that they blur into an amorphous fog. There is nothing – good or bad – that is intertwined with her life.

She has nothing to brag to classmates about. She has no bullies to cry to teachers and her parents about. Even Elly and Julie mostly just throws her nasty glances (if they happen to meet eyes), but they otherwise ignore her. She has no accidents to humorously recount about either.

The life and times of Chloe Price can be summed up sufficiently as go to school, get good grades, spend weekends reading comics and playing on phone, then rinse and repeat.

Well, perhaps not everything is the same. That little girl…the one named Maxine. Chloe sometimes fingers the pencil case given to her as gift and wonders what she is doing.

As she had suspected, their meeting was a one time event. Since her birthday, Chloe has been paying her mom more visits at the Two Whales throwing glances around to see who's there. She always feels a little disappointed when she sees just the usual faces. After doing it a few times, Joyce expressed surprise.

"Not that I don't love your visits, darling, but this is pretty unusual for you, isn't it? You never come to see me at all."

"Yeah, I know. I was just bored and I figure that, since you're close by, I might come see you."

"Well! I sure wish you'd come even when you're not bored, but I'll take what I can get. You're welcome at any time, Chloe."

Eventually, though, she becomes bored with the visits too and stops coming and, soon, Maxine fades from memory.

While taking out the trash one evening, Chloe happens to see her neighbor, a lady named Polly, being dropped off by an unfamiliar car. At first, she hardly even recognized Polly as she had her hair done and had on very carefully applied make-up. She also had on a beautiful red dress that accentuated her curves pleasingly and brand new heels. Chloe even caught an alluring scent that drifted down her way.

After Polly kisses the stranger in the car goodnight, Chloe went inside her home and into her bathroom. She takes off her shirt examining herself in the mirror.

She tries to imagine herself in Polly's red dress and the image that comes to her head doesn't seem nearly as good. She is lanky and neither her chest nor her butt really pops out. That red dress wouldn't help as it would just hang loosely on her.

Looking more closely at her face, she decides that make-up would help her face but the problem is that she has no idea how to apply it. How do other girls do it? How did Polly do it? Is there an instructions book she has to read? Was it trial and error? Did their mothers teach them?

She thought about asking Joyce but her potential reaction and the likelihood that she'd tell William makes Chloe uncomfortable and she gives up on the idea.

She also thinks about _why_ she wants to try on make-up. Polly did it probably to impress whoever is in that car she got out of. Does that mean Chloe wants to impress somebody?

The thought easily leads to the idea that perhaps she wants a boyfriend. A lot of other girls at her school seem to have one. Why doesn't she? Maybe a boyfriend could take her places and they'd have fun together. Someone who enjoys being around her and wants to.

She couldn't really decide what kind of boy she likes, though. Someone like Julie's boyfriend, Kenny, repulses her, but even Elly's boyfriend, Jason, didn't seem appealing either. She tried to think of what kind of boy she might want and didn't know.

Chloe ended up putting aside the idea, but it still gnaws at her whenever she sees a couple as it feels like she should have a boyfriend too. It makes her feel weird for not having one when all her classmates do. Is it really her fault, though, when none of the boys interest her? More notably, none seem to show interest.

But that's another thought that gnaws at her heart.

After she decided she wanted to use make-up and specifically to be attractive to the boy of her dreams that might appear, she became hyper aware of boys, couples, and any mention of relationships. Any time she sees two people kissing or even if someone mentions it in passing, they would have her full attention.

Over that time, a question comes to her. How exactly do you attract a boy?

She had decided on learning make-up and just left it at that, but is that really all there is to it? In the movies, the girls would be beautiful and the heroes would just come to them. Does it work that way in real life?

Was putting on make-up and a red dress all Polly needed to do? How did Elly and Julie get their boyfriends? How did her mom get her dad? She didn't know and the only people she could ask were her parents and she didn't want to ask them. So she remained ignorant.

But it gnaws at her. When she sees those couples, it reminds her and the question reappears and it gnaws at her. When she thinks of make-up, it leads to the question and it gnaws at her.

When her father comes home, it grabbed her attention as he was unusually early and unusually happy. Joyce had already beat him home that day by thirty minutes but Chloe later learns that he had actually called her and asked her to close up shop early, which she had to get permission to do.

When he arrived, he gathered them all together to inform them that he had received a promotion. It wasn't exactly the one he wanted but he'll be making a little more and, more importantly, he'll be receiving a little more off time.

It sounded weird to Chloe. That her father now has a higher position with higher salary, but that somehow means he'll work less than before. She always had it in her head that the more one gets paid, the more one works. That it was a sort of law to life and, really, that's exactly how it was for Joyce and also William before he got promoted.

Not that she's complaining. If this is the way it works in this case, she'll be happy to take it.

William declared that he didn't just gather his family together merely to announce the good news. He says that, as a treat, he'll be taking his favorite ladies to a nice shopping mall in the big city to buy them a new dress…so long as it's within reason, he adds laughing nervously seeing the gleam in Joyce's eyes.

So on his next day off, he takes them to a sprawling mall so large that it can be seen long before they even reach it and there are so many consumers that they require a multi-level parking garage that reaches so high that it has a built in an elevator.

Even before going in, Chloe is already greatly impressed. Arcadia Bay barely has any stores as it is – even the number of grocery stores is very limited – and the largest of them isn't anywhere near what one could call a 'mall'. This place her father took them to, however, is so massive that every store in Arcadia Bay could fit into the first level alone.

Which is another thing that made her mouth drop. When she first came in and saw the stairs and escalators, she stared uncomprehendingly until it hit her that the mall had more than one level. Three, to be exact. Of course, that's what stairs and escalators are meant to indicate, but the idea of stores having levels was so foreign to her that it took her a moment to see that.

Joyce isn't nearly as impressed as her, but she did seem very happy and excited to be there. Seeing their enjoyment, her father also becomes more upbeat. Of course, with all of them this way, they couldn't _just_ go buy the dress he promised. They had to explore and window shop and see what's out there.

After reaching the second level, Chloe doubletake seeing a 'Hurricane Simulator' machine which the ads on the sides says is to allow her to experience a 'Category 1' hurricane with wind speeds of 70+MPH. Seeing her stare, her parents gave her some money and told her to go have fun.

So she tries the simulator and it has her standing in an enclosed metal tube. When it started, air blows out and ratcheted up very quickly until Chloe's hair and clothes were blowing all around and the noise turns into a screech. It only lasted about a minute, but she left feeling dizzy and in awe. She would certainly hate to see something like that in Arcadia Bay.

She comes to a food court which is unbelievable large. From one end to the other are a large variety of fast food vendors connected to one another in a long line – some of which exists in her hometown, many of which didn't. There were vendors stated to serve Thai and Malaysian food and she wonders know how different they taste from Chinese. There were even vendors that did nothing but serve specialty drinks.

The actual sitting area in front of all these vendors is plain massive. A whole fast food restaurant or two could fit in the space that covers the area where the vendors begin and the sitting area ends.

She didn't feel hungry enough to eat, but she saves the memory of this place thinking she might come back later. Walking along the mall, Chloe feels fatigue flow through her shoulders. Inundated with so many sights, she takes a seat on one of the many available benches to take a breather.

Reflecting, she realizes that even that simple fact is amazing – that a mall could have so many sights that just _seeing_ them could exhaust her. To think there are such incredible things in the world.

It is while sitting down that she happens to look up towards the third level and notices some sort of panda bear walking along. It takes her a moment to realize that it's not somebody dressed in a costume, but a stuffed bear being carried by someone who is apparently small enough to have the bear cover nearly his entire form.

Compared to the things she's seen today, that didn't warrant much thought but something about it kept grabbing at her. She freezes when it finally hits her – she only knows one other person to have a stuffed panda bear toy that is large enough to cover their form like that. That little girl who gave her the pencil case for her birthday. Maxine.

It occurs to her that anybody could have the same thing as the toy is large and probably designed to be sold to children, but she couldn't get the thought out of her mind. Getting up, she rushes over to nearest stairwell all while keeping as much of an eye on the bear as possible.

When she reaches the third level, she goes towards the area where she saw the bear headed. At first, she couldn't find it anywhere and she feared that she lost it. Looking around two, three times, her eyes land on one of the stores which seem to be some kind of gaming center. Taking a chance, she walks over and looks inside to see it lined with all sorts of gaming machines.

Going inside, she moves looking around hesitantly. Half way through, she spots the bear lying on the ground with somebody standing beside it playing an arcade machine. Pretending to just be browsing, Chloe walks a little further ahead trying to get a clear view. When the person comes into view, Chloe stops losing her breath a bit.

Pale skin, messy brown hair in a bob cut, and blue eyes. It's her. Maxine Caulfield. She plays the arcade machine without even noticing Chloe blatantly staring at her.

After her birthday at the diner, Chloe had largely figured that she'd perhaps never see the other girl again. After all, that was the first time she ever saw her at the diner and she had never reappeared afterwards. She recalls the pencil case given to her by Maxine as a birthday gift – she still keeps it in her backpack though she never bothered to use it. She just sometimes glances at it and remembers how she got it. She had thought it would be a gift from a girl she would remember every now and then without seeing again.

Except there she is. Of all the places in the world, Chloe just happens to go to the one place where Maxine also happened to be. What were the chances? Had her father never gotten a promotion, they would not have met. Had he not decided to treat them, they would not have met. Had he just decided taken her here earlier or later than today, they might still have not met.

Briefly, she thought that perhaps the universe is trying to point out to her that she should go talk to Maxine.

And she wanted to – just a little – but didn't know how to approach. Should she just try to casually walk up and say hi? Or maybe just meander around until Maxine finally sees her and comes to her?

As fate (and impatience) would have it, Chloe simply said hi in an embarrassingly squeaky voice.

Maxine pauses in confusion as if unsure she really heard someone or not, then she stares around trying to find anyone looking at her. When she turns and meets Chloe's eyes, she hesitates uncertain before her eyes light in recognition.

She smiles shyly, "Chloe, is that you?"

Putting on what she hopes is a confident smile, Chloe replies, "Yep, that's me. Long time no see, Maxine."

She nods confirming. "Yeah. Since we didn't go to the same school, I thought we wouldn't see each other again, but I'm glad you're here. Are you here with your parents?"

"Yeah, but we split up to explore. This is the first time I've been here."

"I've been here before-" Maxine says morosely. "-but I've never explored. I just wanted to play games."

Chloe glances at the arcade she was playing. It's some kind of fighting game. "Do you like fighting video games?"

"A little. I'm not good at them, though. I usually lose by the second fight."

She frowns hearing this. The first three or so fights in any fighting games are usually designed as 'warm ups' so they tend to be fairly easy. The fact that Maxine is losing by the second fight means she's pretty bad at the game.

Clearing her throat, Chloe offers hesitatingly, "If you want, I could play with you. Maybe I can show you how to play them?"

Maxine nods, "Could you please? I would love that."

That is all the encouragement Chloe needed. She rushes up and shoves in the two quarters needed to play a game and hits the start button to add herself in. After selecting their characters – Chloe wasn't familiar with this game so she just chose the coolest looking fighter she saw – they began their battle.

As she guessed, Maxine is a poor player. She rarely blocks attacks, her attacks consist of simple standing kicks or punches, and she never used a single special technique even though they're so simple that Chloe was able to guess some within seconds.

Expressing frequent surprise and sounds of awe at Chloe's 'mastery', Maxine ends up losing quickly then she puts in more money wanting a rematch. When the second fight starts, Chloe stops her.

"Wait, let me show you some moves." She demonstrates a button combination resulting in Maxine's fighter throwing a fireball. "See that? That's how you do it."

Wide eyed, she repeats Chloe's actions. It takes a few tries before she gets it, but eventually she is able to consistently use a fireball technique. The battle timer started turning red, so they quickly get back into battle.

Maxine is so impressed by the fireball technique that she then decides to use only it in lieu of anything else and even managed to hit Chloe twice before she got the idea of what was happening. Unfortunately, as she was about to close in to attack, the timer ran out leaving Maxine as the only person to get any damage in. The game, of course, declares her the winner.

Chloe wouldn't have been upset either way, but when Maxine's face burst into a wide open smile and she even jumps and claps in excitement, she finds it strangely made her even happier. As if Maxine's victory was, in effect, a victory for them both.

A math teacher once told her class that he enjoyed teaching because he liked the feeling of seeing his students finally 'getting' a difficult concept or succeed and it's a reason why he sometimes encourages them to enter math competitions in the hopes of winning. She hadn't believed him at the time thinking teaching was easy money and that the competition thing was really forced onto him by the school.

As their playing continued and she kept stopping to teach Maxine new techniques, battle tactics, and just how to become a better player, she felt a distinct sense of pride and happiness whenever her protégé successfully uses her new battle prowess against her.

The first time Chloe was blocked and kicked away, she attempted to retaliate with a jumping kick only for Maxine to jump into the air at the right time and kick her away again. It was a simple and common tactic, really, but such a huge improvement from before that Chloe lets out an awe whisper of praise which has the other girl preening.

When Maxine effectively utilized everything she learned to defeat Chloe in two rounds of a match in which she really did tried to win for the first time, _both_ became happy and Chloe found herself jumping in rhythm with Maxine in celebration of her victory.

Perhaps her math teacher had something, after all.

They played more matches. Maxine began experimenting with the play style and, soon, she started discovering new techniques which even Chloe didn't know and, in a turn, the student taught her teacher. From then on, both battle and enjoyed on an equal playing field.

They each must have put in $20 of quarters before Chloe caught sight of it out of her periphery – a machine with familiar handle bars and blue and pink arrow pads on the bottom. She quickly stops Maxine from putting in more quarters into the fighting game.

"Maxine, wait. Have you ever played DDR before?"

"DDR?" She repeats in confusion. "No, what is it?"

"It means Dance Dance Revolution." Chloe says and points to the machine. "That's it over there. Come on, I'll show you."

Maxine grabs her stuffed bear and they walk over to the DDR machine. Maxine stares at it up and down slowly her eyebrows furrowed as if she couldn't make sense of this weird and massive machine.

"How do you play this?"

Chloe bites her lips smiling a little. "To be honest, I'm not 100% sure. See, I've never actually even seen a DDR machine in person before. I've only ever seen it in videos. I think I get the idea of what to do, though."

She points at the pads. "See those pink and blue arrows? They're the controls of the game. You have to stand on the machine and tap those arrows with your feet in time with the machine, right?" She indicates the screen. "Arrows will appear on that screen. When the game tells you to, you have to press the right arrow that shows up."

She gets on top of the machine and Maxine follows her lead standing besides her staring down at the arrows and using Chloe's posture and stance as an example to follow. They put in the money – the game required two dollars from each of them to play – and watches as the screen pops up asking to select difficulty.

Knowing they're both new at this, Chloe chose 'Easy'. The next screen asked for them to choose a song and she chose a song that seemed easy…but not too easy. Maxine watched with wide eyes surprised to see her do the selecting using nothing but her feet.

At last, the game starts and they're brought to a screen using a mixture of psychedelic and rhythmic visualizations. Chloe quickly points to the top.

"There, I think that's it. See those markers?" She indicates the clear arrow markers at the top of screen. "Arrows will fly up the screen and when they hit those markers, you have to tap the right ones on the pad, okay?"

Maxine nods still unsure.

"It's going to start soon. We'll try it out first."

The game asked 'Ready?', then without waiting, a series of arrows began scrolling upwards. Even before it got up there, both of them got the idea. Putting that understanding to use, though was a bit harder.

This is as much Chloe's first time playing the game as it is Maxine's and she discovers that that it actually takes a bit of finesse to tap one arrow then move to another without tripping over herself. Her partner seems to be having equal trouble. She wasn't tripping but she moved a lot slower to avoid doing so.

As they tap, various remarks pop up on the screen indicating how good their rhythm is. There were a few 'greats' and even one or two 'perfects', but most were poor matches. Eventually, as they got more used to the machine, their score slowly increased.

Chloe found that she was having plenty of fun even in the frustration. She glance over at Maxine every now and then and is pleased to see her face go from confused to a small smile which then becomes a large smile.

"I think I'm beginning to get it, Chloe."

"Me too!" She gasps.

Their enjoyment turns to surprise when the game suddenly increased in difficulty with the occasional double arrows requiring them to hit two pads at the same time or a long arrow which they discovered meant they had to keep one pad pressed for an extended time.

Maxine had a long arrow come up that required her to keep her right leg on the up arrow pad but a series of other arrows continued to come requiring her to use her left leg to try to tap the other arrows. This threw off her balance and she ended up falling over onto Chloe knocking the both of them down.

As they stare at each other in surprise, the game ends declaring that they did poorly. They look at the game, then at each other again, and burst out laughing. Chloe lays her head on the floor and closed her eyes laughing so hard that she had to struggle to stop just to breathe. Maxine giggles repeatedly even as she tries to hold her hands over her mouth to hide it.

They both get up as their laughter dies down. Staring over at her companion, Chloe grins.

"Try again?"

"Yeah! Lets do it!"

Feeding the machine the money it demands, the game begins again and Chloe makes sure to choose the same settings and song as before to keep it simple. This time, the two of them crouch in a 'ready' stance and smile at each other prepared for action. The game begins again.

Chloe focuses to keep her rhythm in-sync with the game and she moves her upper body to try to keep her balance. Maxine does the same and their fingers brushes at point as they wobble left and right trying to maintain this delicate pose.

They did vastly better this time. The few times Chloe catches sight of the game's remarks, she sees a lot of 'good' and 'great'. Feeling a little heated, she realizes she's actually sweating a little and is breathing heavier than normal, but she likes it. Glancing over, she sees beads of sweat on Maxine's forehead too.

Just before the game ramps up in difficult, she shouts, "Get ready! It's about to get crazy!"

"I'm ready!"

Then the point came which they failed spectacularly before. Being prepared this time, they do better and, for a moment, they managed to keep up. The speed eventually catches up with them and Chloe is the first to trip this time. When the moment came she had to quickly switch between pads, she accidentally lifted the wrong foot and, trying to correct herself, she trips and is about to crash off the pad board altogether.

A hand quickly snaps out and pulls her back up. She pauses in surprised before quickly getting her head back into the game. Realizing what happened, she grins.

"Thanks, Maxine!"

"No talk! Play now!"

Chloe laughs a bit and glances over. Maxine's face is that of great excitement. She's focused on the game and is actually doing surprisingly well. Her smile is also wide enough to break off her face.

At last, the game ends and they bend over resting on their knees trying to catch their breaths. Hearing her giggle, Chloe looks over to see Maxine smiling at her.

"That was _really_ fun!"

"Yeah…yeah, it was."

Chloe meant it too. She doesn't remember when she enjoyed herself so much. She doesn't remember when she did so badly at a game and _loved_ it instead of getting frustrated. She loved how they're doing this together and how, in the midst of the excitement, they would fall over each other and also save the other from falling. She wanted to do it again.

The final score comes up and Maxine proves to be the better player. The game congratulates them both on a good game but her score is much higher than Chloe's.

"Aww, you win."

"It's a competition?" Maxine asks. "I thought it was a cooperation."

Chloe pauses to think up a good response. "It's both. We compete for score, cooperate for fun."

Maxine nods. "I like that type of game."

She glances at the screen, then at Maxine. "Do you want to play again? Or…?"

Pursing her lips, Max points at the entrance, "Can we go eat? I'm kind of hungry."

"Yeah, I am too." She wasn't really, but she wanted to come along anyway. "The food court is on the second level."

Picking up her bear, Maxine walks alongside Chloe out the game center. As they walk downstairs, Chloe rifles through her pockets discretely trying to work out how much money she has left.

Her dad gave her $50 figuring it would be more than enough. In most other cases, it would have been. Today, though, she sunk about $20 into that fighting game plus a few more dollars into DDR. She should still have plenty of money left.

At the food court, Maxine turns to her, "Find us a good seat. I'll go order."

Chloe nods and she runs off to one of the vendors. Chloe glances around and decides on the table closest to the edge figuring they could stare at the mall ceiling if they get bored as the ceiling is actually made of glass allowing the sky to be visible.

She turns intending to go make her own order when Maxine returns carrying two bowls of ice cream. "I got us strawberry ice cream."

Surprised, Chloe stutters a bit, "O-oh, thanks. Do you want me to pay you back?"

She shakes her head. "No, I wanted to buy it for you. We're friends."

"Oh, thanks." Chloe says a little surprise. A tingly feeling goes through her at the words. Gathering herself, she points to the seat she chose. "Hey, I found seats over there. We have a good view."

They sit down where Max immediately digs into the ice cream with gusto. Chloe goes more slowly taking a spoonful. Licking her lips, she grins.

"This is great stuff!" She looks at the ice cream. "I like how they have pieces of real strawberry in it."

"Yeah, it's large pieces too." Maxine says in-between spoonfuls. "That makes it better."

Chloe smiles watching her eat. She briefly thinks of how different Maxine actually seems now – bolder and more open in her feelings. She has become familiar enough with Chloe that perhaps she not longer feels nervous around her and can act more freely.

"I'm glad to be here."

She had whispered that intending to say it to herself but Maxine picks up the words and looks up from her bowl.

"I'm happy too, Chloe. Do you… come here often?" Maxine shakes her head. "No, I think you said this is the first time you came here."

Chloe nods. "Yep, my first time. I've never been to a mall like this before. It blew my mind when I stepped in here. Everything's so…different. Was it like that for you the first time?"

She looks thoughtful. "I can't remember, but I think so. I spend most of my time in the game center whenever we come here, though, waiting for my parents to finish shopping." She perks up a bit. "Oh wait, I do remember that my dad took me into that hurricane machine with him and I screamed a lot. I've been scared to go around ever since."

Laughing, Chloe responds, "Yeah, that machine was freaky. After we split up, I saw that and went in to see what it was like."

Maxine's eyes widen. "By yourself?"

"By myself. I was dizzy afterwards. Being in a real hurricane must be scary as hell."

Chloe's voice hitch a bit at the end unsure if her language would offend her companion, but Maxine didn't even notice. Instead, she stares with impressed eyes at Chloe's account of how she went into the frightening machine without either of her parents.

"That's really cool, Chloe." She says in an awed voice. "I wish you were with me when I went into that machine."

Chloe's cheeks redden and she stumbles a bit at her next words.

"Y-yeah, I wish too. I would like to come here more often. This has got to be the biggest mall ever."

Maxine pauses and looks around hesitantly. "I think…I've been to a bigger mall. It looks bigger to me."

"Bigger than this?" Now it's Chloe's turn to be amazed. "Where's that? Is it in this city too?"

"It's not here. I don't remember where it was; I slept most of the way there."

"But it's bigger?"

Max nods. "I think so. This mall has three floors, but that other one had four."

"F-four?" Chloe says wide eyed. "What else does it have?"

"It actually has a whole amusement park right inside it with rollercoaster rides and everything." Maxine says perking up. "It also has this aquarium where you go through a scary tunnel and see a lot of animals. There's even sharks! My dad said the aquarium would let me swim in the water but I didn't want the sharks to eat me."

Maxine lights up happily as bits and pieces of the memory of her visit slowly comes back to her and she hurries to transform the images and sounds in her head into a verbal explanation.

"And, and there were so many stores! They have a game center that's way bigger than the one here and it has go-kart racing inside! They have a maze, a place where you play golf, and there was this place with girls that has really huge boobs! My mom yelled at my dad for looking at them." She giggles remembering how embarrassed her father looked. "Oh, and there's this place that actually teaches you how to fly airplanes and they have machines that lets you try flying!"

Chloe pays rapt attention feeling more and more overwhelmed just by listening. When she first came to this store, just the idea of a place with more than one level and had such a huge food court was incredible.

Apparently, though, there's a mall somewhere that's one level higher and is so large that it has an entire amusement park – with rollercoasters! – inside. Along with an aquarium large enough to hold sharks. Plus a maze. Plus a place that lets you _fly_ _airplanes_. All of this and a place where you can stare at girls with huge boobs too.

It sounds like Maxine is describing an entire city – and a large one at that – instead of a mall. Chloe wanted to go there so bad that it's almost physically painful.

"That…that sounds incredible." Chloe says breathlessly. "That has got to be the greatest mall in the world!"

Maxine nods. "I wish it was in Arcadia Bay so I could go there everyday."

"Anything would make Arcadia Bay better." Chloe groans. "I would give my arm just to have this mall. If I had that place you're talking about, I could die happy. Right now, we don't even have a store that sells manga."

"Manga? What's that?"

"Oh, it's Japanese comics."

"You can read Japanese?" Maxine asks in surprise. "I like comics too, but I can only read them in English."

"Oh no, manga is in English. Wait, you like comics too? What do you read?"

"I read Batman. I like it when he solves crimes and stuff. I don't like the fighting, though." Maxine says. "My mom doesn't like me reading that kind of thing. She says it's a terrible influence. My dad says I should spend more time reading my textbooks."

"Textbooks are boring!" Chloe declares confidently. "I think you'll like manga too, Maxine. They're in English and they're great. Most aren't violent at all, so your mom shouldn't have a problem."

She looks up in interest. Maxine would actually like to read much, much more comics and manga too if they're really as great as they sound. Though she does read Batman, she finds she ends up skipping a lot of the content in favor of only certain parts of it which means she ends up finishing very quickly and the comics are short to begin with. If they're in a way that her mom won't be angry at her for reading, that's all the better.

Before she could tell Chloe that, though, the sound of a phone ringing interrupts. Maxine recognizes her ringtone and she pulls out her phone from her pocket. Chloe stares in surprise as Maxine started talking into an old looking flip phone.

Not many kids at her school have phones, but the ones that do all have smartphones. When her parents got her a phone, they had to pick up an older model because the newer ones were far too expensive but she still ended up getting a smartphone too with a nice screen. Chloe flinch a little seeing Maxine's phone thinking her family might be even worse off than she is.

"Hello?...I'm at the food court with my friend…alright, I'll be here." She hangs up. "My dad says we have to go home now. They're coming to get me."

Chloe's mood sours immediately. Of course, it was obvious that either one or the other would eventually have to go, but it did have to be in the middle of when they were still enjoying themselves?

More importantly, before coming here, she had been sure she might never see Maxine again. That might become the case now. Even if she can be sure she would see the other girl again, how long would it be? Would it be as infrequent as it is now and all dependent on the chance that they happen to be in the same place?

She didn't want that.

"Can't you ask your dad if you can stay a little longer?"

Maxine shakes her head softly. "My dad has to go to work tomorrow. He also wants me to study at night instead of wasting time here."

"Then…then come to my house sometimes. I can help you study too." Chloe pleads. "C'mon, I'm really good at school work!"

Blue eyes locks onto her looking curiously and Chloe suddenly stops her pleading as she notice how much they seem to glow.

Smiling, Maxine nods, "I would really like that, Chloe. I'll ask my parents to let me come over your place sometimes."

Snapping out of her trance, Chloe quickly says, "That's great! Lets trade numbers. Give me yours and I'll text you mine."

She pulls out her smartphone and Maxine reads her number. Afterwards, Chloe sends a simple text saying hello. As she did so, it occurs to her that she and Maxine won't be having many texting conversations as it can't be easy to text on a flip phone.

"Alright, saved it." Maxine says. She looks around her sight stopping in a direction. "My parents are coming."

Chloe looks in the direction she's facing and she spots the familiar man and woman from the diner. They return the stare too noticing their daughter sitting with a strange girl they've never met before. Glancing at Maxine, Chloe is surprised to see the girl withdrawing a little and losing some of her demeanor. She gets up standing to attention in front of her parents and Chloe follows suit figuring it's the right thing to do.

On their arrival, Mrs. Caulfield openly takes stock of Chloe making her feel a little self-conscious and Maxine's mother doesn't do much to alleviate that feeling keeping her facial expression stony. Her husband pats Maxine's head a little, though she could feel his eyes wander over to her now and then too.

Maxine flinches seeing her parents' looks becoming a little nervous about how Chloe would react. Her parents have kept a strict watch over what kind of friends she has insisting that having the right kind of friends is important.

Her dad, Ryan Caulfield, says friends influence your decisions in way that is often hard to resist. He believes that keeping the right friends will incentivize his daughter into keeping on the straight and narrow and ultimately succeeding in life.

Her mother, Vanessa Caulfield, is much the same and she has done the most to try to ensure Maxine has a good influence in her life. Many of her mother's friends are much like her and they keep in contact regularly often going shopping and bringing their children along. Like her, Vanessa's friends all have single children families too. There were only two others with daughters and they've all tried to get each other's children to become friends.

Maxine does play with the other daughters, Angelina and Kathy, now and then when their mothers bring them over, but she never really connected with them as well as her mother did with their mothers. Vanessa knew this but she tries her hardest to nurture their friendship and watch her daughter's other friends feeling that the benefits would be worth the time and effort.

So knowing the importance she plays in Maxine's future, Vanessa decides to take the reins in breaking the silence.

"So who would you be, dear? Did you become friends with my little Maxine today?"

Chloe feels a little stung realizing she didn't remember her from when their daughter gave her a gift during her birthday in the diner. At the time, Vanessa and Ryan watched the exchange closely and questioned Maxine a bit afterwards, but soon forgot it all when Chloe did not make another appearance.

"No, ma'am. I met your daughter before at the Two Whales diner. My name is Chloe Price. We haven't seen each other much since, but I saw her today and wanted to play with her."

Ryan fingers his chin. "The Two Whales diner? _Oh_ , I remember now! Maxine here gave you her pencil case, right?" Chloe nods. "That was very kind of you to play with her, Chloe. How come you went so long without seeing her? Do you go to a different school?"

"Yes, sir. I go to Arcadia Junior High." Chloe wets her lips. "I…would like to see Maxine again. I invited her to come over to my house sometimes, if you don't mind."

There is a silence as Ryan and Vanessa glances at each other. Chloe falters a little thinking they're going to say no. Maxine, seeing her parents' reaction and Chloe's falling expression, walks up to her parents clutching her hands together pleadingly.

"May I, mom? Dad? Chloe taught me a lot today and I had a lot of fun. If I go over her house, she can help me study and teach me other things too."

Ryan's expression softens at his daughter's face and he is actually impressed she was taught something. "Is that right? What did you learn?"

A terrible feeling goes through Chloe. She doesn't know Maxine's parents well, but from the little described of them and this short meeting, they sound strict. They probably would not appreciate it if Maxine tells them that Chloe taught her how to throw a fireball in a fighting game or that they learned how to dance with DDR together.

Luckily for both of them, Maxine was aware of this too.

"I was playing a game and doing really badly. She…showed me how to experiment and do better at the game. Afterwards, I wanted to play a dancing game and she showed me to balance better when I move too much or too awkwardly."

It was the truth phrased in a way to make it sound better. Chloe breathes a slight sigh of relief though she still remains tense not sure how Maxine's parents would take it.

Vanessa is skeptical. "She taught you how to experiment in a video game and how to dance better? Huh."

"I guess those are good traits to have." Ryan concedes. He sighs, "Well, I don't really see a problem with it. Chloe seems like a good kid to me. Vanessa?"

Maxine quickly turns to her mother pleading a little more. "Please, mom. I really like Chloe."

Vanessa scowls a little, but slowly nods. "I don't mind, _but_ you can not go over today. You have piano practice today and I want you to spend today and tomorrow studying for your upcoming English test. Understood?"

She looks down. "Yes, mom."

Chloe is surprised to discover that Maxine can play the piano. She has _got_ to see that sometime. Now, though, she just has to assure that she even sees the other girl sometime soon.

"So how about this Sunday?" Chloe asks excitedly. "She's free then, right?"

Vanessa nods. "Yes, she should have time then. I will bring her over to your house to play. Is…" She thinks it over. "8AM alright? I can bring her over before heading to work."

"Yes, that's great!" Chloe smiles.

"I would like to meet your parents too. Will they be there?"

The smile falls off. "W-well, my dad is usually leaves for work at seven and my mom leaves at eight."

It was a half lie. Her dad usually leaves for seven when he's not going to work early and likewise for her mom. However, they're usually not early on Sunday, so it'll hopefully work out.

"Seven? That's even better." Vanessa nods. "I was thinking of going to work a little later to bring Maxine over, but I rather we come by seven anyway."

Chloe smiles again. "Oh, that's great! I can't wait for you to come!"

Vanessa smiles a little. "Good to hear, Chloe. Anyway, we have to go now. Maxine, come along."

Ryan nods to her and leaves with his wife clutching his daughter's hand. She turns around as they walk along waving to Chloe who returns the gesture. When the Caulfields went downstairs and disappears from sight, a sense of melancholy overcomes her.

The day had been so bright and exciting. She was doing something new, learning something new, and trying something new nearly the entire time. Now Maxine's gone and it seems like her life has just returned to what it was: boring. She still probably hasn't seen everything the mall has to offer, but…she just wishes she could see all of it with Maxine instead of by herself.

She returns to sitting at the table in the food court staring at her strawberry ice cream. Taking another spoonful, she finds the taste didn't really suit her and pushes it aside. She rests her chin on her hands and stares listlessly at the rest of the mall wondering how her parents like the experience.

Perhaps another half hour passes until she receives the phone call she didn't realize she had been waiting for. She picks up and her dad's cheerful voice comes through.

" _Chloe, are you done exploring? Ready to buy your dress?"_

She blinks realizing she had completely forgotten that was why they came here.

Putting some cheer into her voice, she responds, "Yeah, I'm ready. Where are you?"

" _On the third level. Go to the very end and you'll see a department store. We're in the area just past the jewelry section. There's some amazing dresses here!"_

"Alright, I'm coming. Bye."

She hangs up and gets up to leave. Her dad seems happier to be looking at dresses than she is, but she suppose most of that excitement is for her and Joyce's benefit rather than any real feelings he has about it. William never was much of a man for dresses. When she reaches the department store, she comes to the conclusion that she isn't one for dresses either and hopes there's some more casual clothes at the store.

Going past the jewelry section as instructed, Chloe catches sight of Joyce first and goes over to stand by her mother who is staring at a nice looking dress.

Joyce smiles at her, "Oh Chloe, I'm glad you're here." She holds up the dress to her daughter. "Hmm, not really your fit but I think it could work."

Chloe grimaces. "I don't know, mom. I've been thinking and maybe casual clothes are more my thing. Maybe I can get some t-shirts and jeans or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous." Joyce admonishes. "You have a closet full of those already. You need something for those _special_ occasions."

She didn't really want to, but didn't bother to disagree instead allowing her mother to go through the selection picking out dresses and holding them up to each of them to see which ones goes best with who.

Her father soon comes around carrying a small toolset. "Well, my two favorite girls. How are the pickings?"

"I don't know." Joyce laments. "They all look so nice. Can't we have more than one, William?"

Her father smiles nervously glancing at the pricetags. "Now Joyce, I've got a promotion but we're not quite at the level of the Rockefellers yet, so lets not go overboard. Only one for each of you."

"Damn." Joyce mutters, then sighs. "Well, we only really need one dress anyway, ain't that right, Chloe?"

She nods. "I don't even need one. I still want that t-shirt and jeans if you'll let me."

"Now don't you start that."

After an hour of searching wherein Chloe feel her back aching from standing still so long, Joyce finally settles on a pretty red dress for herself and a blue dress for her daughter. William lets out an exaggerated sigh that earns him a playful slap from his wife as they check out and finally leave the mall just as it gets dark.

Chloe looks back at the mall feeling a melancholic, though she knows it'll always be there waiting for her if she wants to come back. On the drive back home, the car falls silent and she swallows a bit as a subject that's been on her mind a lot points out to her that now would be a great time to speak.

She clears her throat, "Uh, mom, dad? I was wondering…if I could have someone over sometime? This coming Sunday, I mean?"

"You…want to bring someone over? You mean a friend?" William asks surprise in his voice. "That's great! Your mother and I told you many times we'd be happy to have your friends over any time! Hell, we were beginning to worry you didn't have-"

Joyce elbows him quickly. "Of course, honey. We'll be more than happy to see your friend. Who is he…she…?"

"She." Chloe affirms. "Her name is Maxine Caulfield. We met before and we saw each other again today. I asked her to come over and she said yes."

"Maxine?" Her father repeats the name. "Wait, is this the Maxine that was at your birthday?"

Chloe nods knowing her father can't see. "Yes, that's her."

"My, my, this is quite the development." He says in a mock cartoonish voice.

Joyce looks between Chloe and William confused. "You both seem to know this girl and since Chloe's birthday? Why am I hearing about her now for the first time?"

William blush. "I'm sorry, Joyce, I guess it must have slipped my mind."

"Sorry, mom. I forgot too."

Chloe didn't actually forget. She just didn't think it was necessary to bring it up. Joyce sighs at the two of them, but in a good-natured way. She smiles afterwards at Chloe.

"Well, better late than never. Tell me about, er, Maxine, was it?"

"Yeah, Maxine Caulfield. She is a little younger than me, but I think we hit it off pretty good. We had fun today. I guess I figure we could keep having fun at home."

"She does seem nice, Joyce. I've seen her too. My memory's a little hazy, but I think she's so pinchable, huggable, and just plain wuvable." He laughs playfully. "She's a cute little thing."

"Yeah, she is cute." Chloe agrees smiling. "When I first met her, I thought she was way younger but she's older than she looks. She's also so cool! She's been to some amazing places!" A memory returns widening her smile. "Also, she reads comics. She says she read Batman!"

"Okay, okay!" Joyce laughs. "You two are trying way too hard to convince me, but I was already roaring to go the moment Chloe said she was a friend. Whoever this Maxine is, she sounds like a doll and I want her to come over too."

"Then we're all in agreement!" William declares. "You say she's coming over Sunday?"

"Yeah, her mom is bringing over at seven."

"Seven? Is she staying the night then?"

"I don't know. I hope so. I guess we can ask when she comes over. They should be here just as you're leaving, dad."

"As I'm leaving…? _Oh_ , you mean seven _AM_." He laughs. "I thought you meant seven _PM_ , Chloe. The Caulfields must be early risers."

She shrugs. "I guess. I think her mom wants to meet you both."

"Is that so?" Joyce asks smiling. "Well, your father and I will put on our best faces."

Chloe smiles feeling reassured. Her parents would have been friendly with or without being asked to, but knowing that they're giving it special attention seems to make it more powerful.

It is important that Maxine's parents come to like them as they need the Caulfields' permission for their daughter to come over, but they have it in the bag even without any effort. Her mom is a fantastic cook and her dad is a hard worker. What else could Mrs. Caulfield want?

The sky is dark when they arrive home. Chloe feels ready for bed already but knows her mother won't let her tuck in until they have dinner which she hasn't even started yet. Chloe goes to sit over by the couch in the living room as her father helps her mother prepare.

She stares at the blank TV screen not turning it on. There's nothing interesting on it anyway. Instead, she passes the time picking at the small holes on their aging couch listening to the sound of her parents in the background.

The couch and TV were purchased years back intended as a sort of 'family entertainment' thing. The idea being that this large, comfortable couch would be a place where the family could gather together and enjoy a nice bit of TV on a cool large screen. Her parents' jobs, however, prevented that from becoming a reality.

At the time, Joyce and William were still working mostly normal hours so they hadn't really foreseen their jobs getting in the way so much, but when bills started piling up over this and that, they needed the extra money. The bills did eventually get paid, but, over time, new bills came to replace old bills, and hopes and aspirations of a visit to Paris becomes a reason to work even more.

So over time, the couch and TV becomes just part of the background as the Prices' try to find new ways to have family time as their home can't seem to fill that particular service. Sometimes, life doesn't always play out as one hopes though Chloe supposes that doesn't mean it has to be bad. She sees her parents enough to be satisfied.

"Chloe, could you prepare the table?" Joyce calls.

Wordlessly, Chloe walks over to the kitchen grabbing the plates and utensils. She places a plate on her side and plates beside each other on the other side, then places a spoon, knife, and fork beside each plate. She goes back into the kitchen to get an empty glass.

"What would everyone like?"

"Just ice water for me, Chloe."

"Same here."

She does as asked and also gets orange juice for herself, then places the appropriate glasses at the dinner table. Chloe sits waiting until William brings over a pot of lightly sautéed potatoes placing it in the center before sitting at his seat. Joyce comes a bit carrying a dish of steak. Placing two slices down for everyone, she takes a seat and clasps her hands together to lead prayer.

All ends the prayer simultaneously. "Amen."

Dinner proceeds as a quiet affair. Well, only for Chloe who doesn't say a word. Her parents keep up conversations chatting about their jobs and sharing random bits of their daily lives. She didn't mind too much as thoughts of this upcoming Sunday consume more and more of her mind.

Much of her imaginings involves how Maxine would react when she introduces her to some new comics and what kind of games they could play. She wonders if her friend – that's the word Maxine used to describe them – is familiar with some of them or would they end up going through a learning lesson together again. If so, she might have to freshen up on the rules of Scrabble.

By the time dinner let out, the thoughts of how well it would go fades a bit in favor of how wrong it could go. She bids her parents good-night as they clear the table and she goes up to her room dropping into bed.

Sleep didn't come too easily, however. Lying there with her eyes closed, her mind drifted to the possibility that Maxine would come and end up hating her house. Being bored, hating her house, hating her. She knew it is ridiculous but logic and feelings don't always mesh well.

So images of Maxine smiling battles with images of her angry face floats through her mind. Her angry face reminds Chloe of Elly's angry face and that just repulses her more.

She groans a little and tries again to clear her head. Whatever happens will happen, but she hopes it will go well. Chloe whispers to herself that she wants everything to go right so badly.


	3. Chapter 03

** Chapter 03 **

Sunday arrives and, even without meaning to, Chloe wakes up unusually early. Her eyes widen a little when she checks the time on her phone and sees that it's only 5:17AM. She scowls a little.

Her sleep had already been plagued by worries and excitement about Maxine's visit which had been slowly building up over the past few days. The clock becomes an unusual focus for her through the day and she had viewed its passing with equal dread and excitement.

No longer concerned about the time or missing sleep, Chloe jumps out of bed, grabs a change of clothes, and rushes into the bathroom. Hurriedly showering but making sure to scrub everywhere and using the bar soap gratuitously until her skin is red.

After she brushes her teeth using plenty of mouthwash, she leaves the bathroom heading towards her door. The aroma of baking cookies wafts up from downstairs and she stops listening more closely. Every now and then, she hears the sound of footsteps and the clanking of pans.

Her mom must have woken early too to bake for the two girls. Chloe silently thanks her for a variety of things. The first being for her help in trying to make the best impression and the second for baking cookies. She can hardly remember the last time Joyce baked cookies at home. She wonders if her mom would keep doing it if…when Maxine keeps coming.

Opening her room, she throws her clothes onto a pile on the floor as normal. Her parents tried repeatedly to get her to stop doing that, but one of them always inevitably picks it up for her sooner or later, though, so she never broke the habit. Thing is even if they became stubborn and refuse to pick it up for her, she might still never break the habit.

However, as she faces the stairs intending to go down to help her mom and maybe sneak a cookie, a feeling of discomfort comes over her. She turns and goes inside her room staring unhappily at the clothing pile realizing that while she may not care how it looks, her parents do.

All other parents probably do too. What if Mrs. Caulfield decides to inspect her room? It sounds ridiculous, but _what if_? She might get angry and suddenly declares Maxine is no longer allowed to visit. Or what if Maxine is not like Chloe? What if she hates dirty rooms?

The thought eats at her until she decides the best way to fix it is to clean up. She pulls out the laundry hamper in her closet and begins picking up the clothes from the floor and throwing it in. She had to walk around a bit to pick up the ones that she threw too carelessly, but it was all done in hardly fifteen minutes. Afterwards, she puts the hamper back into her closet and shuts it, then examines the floor feeling more assured.

But then something else seems wrong. There are pencils, balls, her notebooks, and other bits of knick knacks all over the place. It's…ugly. She looks around more carefully and grimaces. The comics and manga she intended to show Maxine were lying haphazardly on her desk, the board games she had gotten out in preparation for the visit were just thrown on the floor, and the bags of candy and chips she bought were still in their plastic bags in a pile as ugly as the clothes.

All of this and her bed is still unmade. It suddenly occurs to her that the odor in her room may not be good either. She sniffs the air experimentally and it doesn't smell bad, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

She got to work. She immediately opens the door and windows as wide as possible to circulate the air in her room, then she begins picking up the things from the floor and puts them where they can't be seen. From there, things just seem to flow in a natural order as Chloe works without thought.

She had intended to help her mom, but it was nearly 6:20AM when she completed her task. Her bed is made, the floor is clean, the food were taken out of their bags and placed neatly on her desk, and the comics and games were together on another desk.

Sniffing the air again, it smells much better but, to be even surer, she runs to the bathroom, picks up a can of air freshener, and runs back spraying the entirety of the room. There. Now she can be happy with the state of this room.

Chloe heads downstairs and goes to the kitchen where she stares in awe at the display. There are two plates of brownies and cookies so fresh that the steam is still coming off them and their sweet scent is overwhelming. Her mouth waters slightly at the sight of them, though she knows Joyce won't react so well to her blatantly taking one.

Hearing her, Joyce turns from washing the baking pans, to smile at her, "Well, look at you. So early and smelling fresh."

She looks down. "Well, I wanted to look good, you know? I want her to like me."

"And she will." Her mother laughs. "She'll be very impressed. I can tell. Here, come help me wash this thing."

Ten minutes later, William comes down dressed for work grinning stupidly, "Well, well, washing dishes with your mother? Ain't that something?"

"It's a baking pan, dad. Mom was baking."

"Oh, believe me, I know. I can smell it all the way upstairs and it's what woke me." He goes over to a plate of brownie and gulps one down. "Oh, sweetness. Delicious."

" _Hey!_ " Chloe shouts scandalized wanting one too.

"Now don't do that. Those are for her and Maxine." Joyce admonishes jokingly. "She's been working hard preparing for her visit. Just look at her. She was up early too."

"I found that out first hand. I went into her room to wake her up so she could get ready and I didn't see her anywhere." William's grin widens. "And get this – her room is spotless and smells as fresh as flowers. I thought I was in the wrong room."

Joyce mock gasps. "Waking early, helping me, _and_ cleaning your room? My goodness, what will I do if I get used to this?"

"I can tell Maxine is a good influence already." William nods. "Chloe, you tell her I personally beg her to come as often as possible. In fact, she can stay here. I'll petition her parents for us to adopt her."

"Would you two stop already?" Chloe says. "If you keep this up, they'll think we're a bunch of weirdoes."

"Now how could they possible think that?" William asks putting on his best cartoon voice.

When the awaited doorbell comes, Chloe looks up at the clock to see that it's still ten minutes before seven before rushing to meet them. She puts on as big of a smile as possible.

Vanessa Caulfield gives a smaller smile in return upon seeing Chloe. She is holding the hand of Maxine who is wearing a plain blue backpack with a strap which holds on to her familiar panda bear doll.

"Welcome, Mrs. Caulfield." Chloe steps aside. "Come in. My parents are here."

She comes in taking care to slip out of her heels and glancing down at her daughter to ensure she is taking her shoes off too. The two follow Chloe into the living room where Joyce and William are waiting. Vanessa quickly exchange handshakes with them and greetings.

"Mr. and Mrs. Price, I presume? How are you? I'm Vanessa Caulfield."

"Oh, please, honey." Joyce says. "Call me Joyce. My husband here is William. No need to be so formal."

Vanessa smiles. "Oh, of course. Joyce, William. Sorry for coming so early, but I had wanted to introduce myself seeing as my daughter will be playing with yours and Chloe told me this is the only time I could see you both." She clears her throat. "As I said, I'm Vanessa Caulfield. My husband is Ryan Caulfield. You're probably already aware of my daughter, Maxine Caulfield."

William puts on a winning smile. "Right! You should know that I'm as excited as my daughter here by Maxine coming over. Chloe has been talking nonstop about her-" Chloe blushes at her dad's words. "-and I could already tell she's something special. She didn't mention how _cute_ she would be, though! Ain't that right, Chloe?"

" _Dad!_ " Chloe hisses.

Joyce laughs at their antics. "Anyway, I'm sorry we missed each other at the mall, Vanessa. I would have loved to meet your husband too."

"Yes, it's too bad but Ryan does send his regards." She glances at Maxine. "Joyce, both my husband and I work very late, but I would be able to take a break and pick my daughter up sometime this afternoon. Is it alright if she stays in your home until then?"

"Well, you didn't have to ask at all." William laughs. "Feel free to leave Maxine with us for a week, if you like. My wife and I work pretty late too, though I do get a reprieve on Sundays, thankfully. I don't have to work as long today."

Vanessa frowns. "So how long will the children be alone for?"

"Oh, only until 1PM at the latest, but I'll probably be home before then."

"And I will be home a little after." Joyce quickly adds. "But you don't have to worry. This is a very safe area and we've always taught Chloe to be careful. Maxine will be very safe here."

She still seems unsure, but is willing to concede. "Alright, that sounds good." She bends down facing her daughter. "Maxine, be on your best behavior while here. I do not want you causing any trouble. Is that clear?"

Maxine nods. "Yes, mom."

William laughs. "Ah, I'm sure Maxine is an angel. Don't worry about it at all. She'll have more to worry from us than we from her."

Vanessa smiles politely at the joke. She faces Maxine again. "You have my and your father's number. If _anything_ goes wrong, call us immediately." Her eyes glance briefly at the plate of baked goods and her countenance becomes strict. "One more thing: you may _only_ have one or two snacks. Nothing more. We are watching your weight now. Clear?"

"Yes, mom."

Satisfied, Vanessa gets up and faces the Prices. "Well, I think it's best I get going now. Before I do, could we exchange numbers? I would like for you to be able to contact me in case anything goes wrong."

William and Joyce agree entirely with that sentiment. They exchange mobile and home numbers. They had their cell phones out while doing so and Chloe stares at Vanessa's phone in surprise. It is a flip phone similar to what Maxine has. It looks quaint in comparison to the smartphones her parents have.

After finishing the exchange, Vanessa smiles at the other two. "William, Joyce, it is good to see you both and I hope Chloe has fun with Maxine today."

Joyce smiles. "I don't doubt in the least she will have the time of her life. If you've seen my daughter before you came, I don't think you'd doubt it either."

"Wonderful to see you, Vanessa." William smiles.

Acknowledging them one last time, Vanessa takes her leave. In the kitchen, Joyce looks at her plate of brownies and cookies sheepishly.

"I guess I cooked a little too much. I didn't know Maxine is on a diet."

Chloe didn't know either. She looks at Maxine's body. Most of it is hidden by her puffy coat and the baggy slacks, but it looks alright to her. The bits of her body that are visible – her hands, neck, and face – looks good too.

William agrees. "Ah, she looks perfectly alright to me. I say let her have all she wants; diets aren't for little kids anyway."

Joyce rolls her eyes. "If you believe that, you don't know many teenage girls."

"We don't have any teenage girls around." William grins, then raises his voice intentionally for Chloe's and Maxine's benefit. "But if any little girls here don't finish the _delicious_ cookies and brownies, I'm warning them that I will gobble it all up when I get back."

Chloe snorts. "I guess that would be my cue to take the plates and hide it in my room."

"Excellent idea." Joyce says, then also raises her voice. "Oh, and if the entire plate were to disappear, I will simply assume Chloe is the one who ate it all."

That line earns a shy smile from Maxine, but it's the first she given since arriving. Joyce could hardly contain herself from picking up the little girl and hugging her. She takes the plates of treats and gives it to Chloe.

"Alright, c'mon, Maxine, lets party!"

Chloe runs to the stairs looking over her shoulders to make sure Maxine is following her. Inside her room, she places the plates down on the desk beside the chips and candy. Maxine stares in awe at the beautiful room.

She says audibly, "You have a really nice room, Chloe."

"Thanks." She laughs. "You can put your backpack and coat anywhere."

Maxine looks around a bit then takes off her backpack placing it near entrance, then stands still unsure of what to do. Chloe glances at her a bit surprised as she still hasn't taken her coat off. It is a bit chilly outside and they do have the temperature set lower inside too, but it's pretty warm inside her room.

"Don't you want to take your coat off?"

"O-oh, I…really want to keep wearing it." Maxine says hesitantly.

"Oh, oh, no problem!" Chloe quickly assures her it's alright. "Hey, want to play a game? I have Monopoly, Scrabble, Family Trivia, and more."

After a pause, Maxine says, "I'm pretty good at Scrabble."

"Then that's what we're playing!"

Chloe quickly sets out the board and setup the game as best as she could remember. When it was set up, Maxine comes over to sit on the opposite side.

"Alright, Rock Paper Scissors to see who starts first."

They go through a quick game and Chloe comes out on top with Rock. Looking down at her seven letter tiles, she decides to start off with the word 'TALE'. Refilling her word tiles from the tile bag, she passes the turn to Maxine.

As the other girl is thinking, Chloe rushes over to the desk grabbing the chips and candy. Upon her return, she sees Maxine already puts down a word…and is already above her by two points. She merely grins seeing that, though.

"Eat all you want." Chloe says referring to food. Maxine looks at it with worry. "What's wrong?"

"My mom says I'm not allowed to eat too much snacks."

"This…this isn't snacks!" Chloe says quickly. "This is candy and chips. They're completely different."

"Oh..." Maxine still looks unsure, but she reaches out and takes some. Her face lights up as she chews. "They're really good."

"I know, right?" Chloe says. "Oh, and I got a word. Ha! I'm ahead by one point now."

It is a struggle, but one she pursues. The search for the Maxine that had been with her at the mall. Since coming here, the other girl has been hiding in a sort of shell and the tenseness she permeates bothers her as much as it must Maxine. So she offers food, smiles, and tries to keep the game balanced. That last one isn't too hard as Maxine is genuinely good at the game.

In fact, too good. Half an hour in, the smaller girl's points has built up to being twelve over Chloe and the latter struggles just to keep the point difference that low. Each play, though, adds another point or two…or three to Maxine's tally, though. At one point, Chloe played 10-point word and silently congratulated herself only to be blown away a moment later when Maxine put in a 14-point word.

Chloe feels the tingling of frustration build up, but after she played another word, she glances up at Maxine's face and pauses. The other girl is smiling. A small smile, but one nonetheless. Her face is flushed from how warm her coat must be making her and her eyebrows are furrowed slightly in concentration. Noticing Chloe's staring, she looks up and bright blue eyes meet her own.

Blushing, she averts her eyes but a giggle later makes her look up again. This time, Maxine blushes and looks away causing Chloe to giggle. That makes her look up and, this time, neither turns away. A few moments later, they both giggle which then turns into outright laughter.

The nervousness melts away from Maxine and Chloe siphons from the delight bubbling up from the other girl. Maxine plays a word that is only 3-point still smiling as Chloe grabs a handful of candy to eat.

She looks at her set of letters and suddenly gets an idea. She tries to hold back a grin, though she suspects she isn't hiding her increasing amusement so well if Maxine's giggle when she glances at her again is any indication.

Chloe places a few letters down. Maxine looks at the word eyes widening a little. A moment of silence passes, then a giggle. Chloe now openly smiles when Maxine's giggle slowly turns in laughter and she tries to hide it behind her hands.

The word Chloe played was 'BOOBS'.

It was a 9-point word but she didn't do it for the points. She did it for the reaction and the fact that it succeeds is the best success. Risking another glance at Maxine, she finds the girl's eyes dancing now with amusement and her expression is a little mischievous. Maxine plays her own word – 'BUTT'.

Chloe's reaction is similar to Maxine's own. First surprise, then a giggle that also turns into laughter, though she doesn't hide hers behind her hands. She loves laughing and she loves how her laughing makes Maxine laugh too. Inside, her heart seems to sing and she wants to keep this up as long as possible.

All desire to play the game competitively falls apart when Chloe plays her next word and it is equally lewd. Then Maxine returns with another lewd word of her own. The game's pace increases tremendously as they both focus intently on playing only specific types of words.

Eventually, the game ends because they run out of letters but Chloe quickly redistributes the letters to start a new game, and they continue. Maxine eats several chips in a row grinning widely and that reminds Chloe to jump up and bring the two plates of cookies and brownies over.

Maxine looks at the plates and her face distorts in worry. Chloe freezes remembering Vanessa's warning and is frightened she may have accidentally ruined the mood. She quickly tries to save it.

"You're only allowed to have two at most, right?" Chloe asks. "I have an idea. Here, try this."

She breaks up a small piece of brownie and places it in-between two pieces of chips like a sandwich handing it to Maxine. The other girl looks curiously at the mixture. Chloe makes her own and eats it in front of her making audible sounds of pleasure to entice her. Eventually, Maxine takes a small bite experimentally, smiles, then eats the rest.

She looks at Chloe, "It's good."

"Right? And you're only eating a small piece of brownie, so you will still stay under the limit."

Maxine smiles happily making another one for herself. Relief flows through Chloe loosening her chest. She didn't know if what she said was true or if the other girl will really stay under the limit her mother set, but so long as she's happy, everything will be alright. Chloe plays a word.

When this next game ends, Maxine asks if they could play Monopoly. Chloe was going to say yes when the set of comics on her desk catches her eyes.

"Wait a minute, I want you to see something first."

She runs over to the desk quickly rifling through the reading materials. Settling on one, she returns and holds it out to Maxine who hesitantly takes it.

"I was thinking that maybe you'd like to read this? It's manga. A comic book from Japan." Chloe smiles. "I remember you said you like Batman, but didn't like certain parts of it. I was thinking that this type of thing might be more to your liking. Do you want to read it together?"

Maxine looks at the title – 'The Girl Next Door' – and admires the beautiful artwork on the cover. She's never seen something like this before. "It looks cool. Yeah, lets read it."

"Alright! Lets lie down."

Chloe lies on the floor next to the food and looks invitingly at Maxine. The latter goes down on all four crawling until she lie beside Chloe so closely that she could feel the outline of Max's sides through her coat. Chloe opens the manga holding it a little to the side so it would be in-between them.

"Hey, you opened it from the back."

"Oh, that's a thing with Japanese manga. You read right to left, so you have to start from the back." Chloe points to the top panel on the first page and trails her finger. "Here, start with this bubble here and then read to the left."

Maxine makes a small noise of awe her eyes following Chloe's finger. They fall into silence reading the first two pages. Reading a comic together turns out to be surprising cumbersome. When Chloe reached the end, she pauses not knowing if Maxine finished too or not. Eventually, she tried asking and got the affirmative, so she turns the page.

Then it also turns out that reading in general is kind of uncomfortable. It draws your mind and you put a lot of your attention into it. This means silence ensues. Silence for reading is alright, but when someone else is there beside you, the silence suddenly becomes bothersome. Chloe purses her lips trying to decide between the feeling she should say something to Maxine and the feeling that anything she say might not really be interesting.

After a few pages of this, things get a little better, though. She discovers that, when finished reading, Maxine would look up at her. So rather than asking 'finished?" over and over, she could just look over to get a clue.

Then the manga picks up and they begin to laugh a little. Maxine also starts pointing out things that made her curious and they would chat about it. She says their uniform looks so cool. How weird it is that they eat lunch right in their classroom.

"That girl is his best friend, right?" Maxine asks.

"Yes, that's right."

"Why does she call him by his last name, though?"

"Oh…that's…see, that's actually his first name."

"What? But the other kids were calling him something else."

"They were calling him by his last name." Chloe grins. "It's a Japanese thing. They call each other by their last names and only by their first names if they're like super, super close."

Maxine looks amazed. "So if we were Japanese, I would call you Price and…"

"…and I would call you Caulfield all the time."

"That's really weird."

Her remarks makes Chloe laugh which, in turn, makes her laugh. Maxine then looks at her to indicate she finished. Dutifully, Chloe turns the page so they could continue.

At some point, they had reached a scene where the main character is arguing with a cute girl – the love interest as Chloe knows from reading this already – when she suddenly smells something sweet. It takes her a moment before she recognizes the smell as some kind of berry. She isn't sure which type exactly, but a berry.

She sniffs the air experimentally trying to find out where it's coming from. She almost thought it might have been the food nearby but it isn't coming from that direction. She leans a bit to the other way and the smell becomes a little bit clearer. Turning her head a bit, she stares at Maxine's face.

It must be whatever soap or shampoo she uses. Chloe hadn't noticed it before because they hadn't been this close to each other until they started reading, but they're now in close proximity and have been for some time. She sniffs the air again more deeply this time and the scent is now stronger.

"Hey, I, uh, like the smell of your shampoo. It smells like berries."

Maxine stills and a flush comes over her face. She nods shyly. "That's not shampoo. That's perfume. My mom says it's good for me to put it on. It's called strawberry passion." Chloe blinks not sure what the 'passion' part is supposed to indicate. "Here, smell it."

She leans in closer and lifts her head slightly. Chloe hesitates a little, then leans in close to Maxine's neck and inhales. The scent is really intoxicating. She leans back and smiles nodding in approval.

"It's really good. Your mom has…good taste."

Another flush. "Can we turn the page now?"

"Page? Oh! Right."

She does as asked and the other girl returns her focus to the manga. Chloe's attention, however, remained on the scent for the longest time and she wishes Maxine would let her smell her again.

When Maxine laughs again, her internal thoughts breaks to look down at what she found so funny and she laughs too seeing the protagonist tripping over a girl.

Eventually, they reach the end of the manga and Maxine lets out a disappointed sigh feeling as if she was just beginning to get into it.

"I really like that. I wish there were more."

Chloe looks over, "That was only the first volume. I have two more volumes, if you like."

Her eyes brighten. "Really? I…" She hesitates looking at the other board games. "I really want to read, but if we keep going, we might not have time for the other games."

"Then we can play those games and I can just loan you the manga to take home." Chloe says simply. "I actually read them already, so I don't mind if you have them for a while."

Maxine looks excited at first but deflates almost immediately. "I want to, but I don't think my parents will let me. My mom says comics are a waste of time and my dad says I should focus on studying. He says studying is the only way to get ahead in life."

Chloe blinks. "Parents are weird. My dad said the secret to success is hard work and the willingness to get your hands dirty."

"I wish it was like that for me. Then I can read comics too."

Smiling a little, Chloe says, "Well, if you can't read comics at your house and we can't finish it here before playing all the other games, I guess that just means you'll have to come back."

Maxine pauses, then smiles too. "Yeah. I want to come back here a lot more. Your house is so much more fun than mine."

Chloe would be the first to disagree with the idea that her house is fun, but today, she would have been proven wrong. Since Maxine came here, she has had more fun than she can remember.

"So what do we do now?"

Snapping to attention, Chloe grins, "You wanted to play monopoly before, right? Lets do that."

Eager to start playing again, they quickly setup a new game of Monopoly together. Maxine decided on the dog as an icon saying he is 'cute' while Chloe chose the battleship for being the coolest looking one and, another Rock Paper Scissors contest, Chloe is the first to play.

The game started fairly quickly with Chloe buying up a light blue property, two purple, and an orange. Maxine is less lucky landing on a 'Chance' tile giving her a card that sends her to the 'Go' tile giving her an extra $200, then her next roll lands on her Chloe's property making her pay rent, then the next roll lands her on 'Community Chest' giving her a bank error that pays $200, and then she finally lands on a green property allowing her to buy her first property.

By the time Chloe passes 'Go' for the first time replenishing her funds a little, she is already flush with numerous properties giving her a large advantage. She now owns at least one of almost every color on the board, except for green and blue. Maxine owns one green and one blue, but has much more cash. The lopsided advantage, though, means that there's a good chance Chloe will win the game very quickly.

The first hiccup occurs when Maxine lands on 'Chance' yet again. She eagerly picks up a card expecting to win more money, but becomes upset when the card declares she must go to jail.

"Maxine? What's wrong?" Chloe asks looking at her friend's face. "It's not that bad. You can pay $50 or get out of jail by rolling a double."

"Yeah, it's just…I feel weird about that place. My mom says that if I don't study and practice enough, I'll end up poor and in jail, so it bothers me a little. I'll go there."

Chloe flinches a bit wondering why her mother would tell her something like that. As Maxine is about to move her icon to the jail space, she stops her.

"Wait, instead, of going to jail, we can do something else."

"Like what?"

"You can just pay $50 right away. Or maybe just stay in that same spot for three turns." Chloe's eyes light up when another idea occurs. "Or maybe I can issue a challenge that you have to go through."

"A challenge? Like what?"

"Like…this!"

Chloe lunges towards her and begins tickling her sides. Maxine jerks a bit then bursts out laughing struggling to get Chloe off. She shouts 'stop' in-between laughing but Chloe ignores her, of course.

"Your challenge is to survive my tickling!"

"Stop! Stop!"

Maxine finally stops the tickling by successfully grabbing both of Chloe's arms and holding it in place. Conceding defeat, Chloe backs away giggling a little. Maxine pushes herself up afterwards smiling.

"Alright, since I passed my challenge, it's my turn."

"Oh no, you don't!" Chloe says. "Your challenge just helps you stay out of jail. It's my turn."

Chloe takes the dice and rolls once again succeeding in landing on another property – another purple. When Maxine takes her turn, she lands on the last available purple ending Chloe's potential monopoly ownership. Chloe scowls a little and rolls again.

The game continues as thus until, some half an hour later, Chloe rolls a dice earning her a seven which lands her on the last available red property.

"I got a monopoly!"

The game hits its turning point as the first monopoly appears. Up until then, Chloe has managed to get the majority of the properties, but Maxine managed to take at least one of a few colors breaking her potential monopolies. Furthermore, the railroads were evenly split between them though Chloe managed to get both utilities companies.

The only available properties left are the last yellow, two more greens, one more blue, and one more orange. Their cash supply are both a little under a thousand, so they're not in any danger of bankruptcy yet but now that Chloe has a monopoly, the stakes are higher.

"Your turn, Maxine. You're a little behind me, so don't get the wrong roll." Chloe teases knowing that no real damage can occur until she starts building homes on the monopoly.

Maxine rolls. She lands on the railroad which is owned by Chloe and is forced to pay $100. Chloe takes the dice and rolls hoping to get at least one of the green. She lands on the 'Go To Jail' space.

"Challenge time!" Maxine suddenly says giggling.

"What?"

"Challenge. You have to pass my challenge."

Chloe blinks. That was a thing meant entirely for Maxine and she hadn't actually intended to do it herself, but the idea excites her a little. She nods eagerly awaiting to see what she has to do. Maxine thinks a little then a grin appears on her face. Chloe braces herself wondering what will happen.

Maxine moves over grabbing a few chips and a piece of brownie and cookies. She mixes in a few other candies too making a sort of candy snack sandwich using the chips to hold them together. Then she holds it out to Chloe.

"Eat this!"

Chloe looks at the concoction with fearless eyes. "Too easy."

She takes it and gulps the entire 'sandwich' down. The taste is a bit strange and conflicting, but hardly bad. Maxine stares at her impressed at how easily she does it, but perhaps she would be a little less so if she knew that Chloe had designed far worse snack sandwiches.

"You ate it right away." Maxine says. "Gross!"

"No, delicious!" Chloe laughs. "Your turn now."

She rolls a higher number and lands on one of the open green spaces which she purchases immediately. Then it's Chloe's turn and she misses the last blue property by a single point making her feel a bit aggravated.

That bit of aggravation turns into disbelief and outrage when Maxine then lands on it giving her the most expensive monopoly in the whole game.

"Yes!"

"Awww, you got it." Chloe grins. "Looks like we both got one now."

"Yup. Mine is also the best one."

"Also the one that's hardest to land on."

"But if you do, you'll pay. Alright, I'm feeling on a hot streak."

Maxine suddenly gets up and zips off her blue coat for the first time throwing it on the bed. Chloe looks over able to see Maxine for the first time without the oversized coat and examines her body. Her body is…completely normal.

She is a little plump in places. Her shirt is a simple pink long-sleeve and her chest has small bulges indicating the starting growth of breasts. The loss of the puffy coat also works to make her already small frame a little smaller and Chloe feels as if she could crush Maxine if she handles the other girl a little too roughly.

Maxine notices her staring and blushes feeling a little self conscious. Involuntarily, she raises her arms in front of her body as a sort of protective wall. Realizing what her staring is doing, Chloe blushes and turns away.

"You look cute."

"T-thanks. My mom helps me a lot with watching what I eat. She says girls have to do it." A pause makes Chloe look over. Maxine is now staring at Chloe's body a little too much deepening her blush. "My mom says you are what I should look like."

Chloe looks down at her own body in surprise. _She_ is what Vanessa thinks Maxine should look like? But…but why? Her body isn't anything great. She's too tall and too thin. Her own mom used to complain that she doesn't eat enough and that she looks like a stick.

Looking into Maxine's eyes, she says, "I…I think you look way better, Maxine."

They stare at each other in silence for a bit until both breaks the look coughing a little. Their faces are intensely red and the silence feels a little uncomfortable, though also a little nice.

Swallowing, Maxine reminds her, "Uh, I think it's your turn now."

"O-oh, right."

Gathering herself, Chloe realizes the time has come to build properties and she builds all the way up to the max allowed of a hotel. It depletes a large amount of her funds but she'll now have a large advantage. She then rolls landing directly on 'Go' and Maxine's then turn the tides again building four houses on her monopoly.

They continue like this for a little while. Eventually, the last of the property – the last green which is purchased by Chloe breaking Maxine's potential monopoly – is gone and the game settles with Chloe owning a monopoly for the orange and red property while Maxine only has the blue property. In short, as predicted, Chloe is the most likely to win.

Then Maxine lands on the 'Go To Jail' space.

It takes a moment, but then a large grin appears on Chloe's face. Maxine instinctively covers her sides and huddle inward to prevent any tickling attacks. She looks at Chloe grinning expecting her hands to just fly out in another attempt to tickle her at any moment.

So when it's like that, how could she resist doing exactly as expected?

"Alright, your challenge is to stand on one leg and rub your head and belly at the same time."

Maxine is confused. She experimentally rubs her head then tries to follow with rubbing her stomach only to realize a moment later that she accidentally stopped rubbing her head. She tries again and gets up to stand on one leg only to stop rubbing altogether as she focuses on lifting her leg.

And, of course, while she is trying to figure this out, Chloe tackles and straddles her to start another tickle attack.

Laughter bursts from both girls as Maxine tries to struggle out and Chloe maneuvers to continue tickling. The former twists her body until she turns around with her back to Chloe trying to block the latter's hands, though it is futile as she merely continues tickling Maxine's sides.

Eventually, she turns the table again by twisting continuously until she is able to maneuver into wrapping her arms around Chloe's body holding her arms in place. Seeing she had been caught again, Chloe stops the assault and breathes laughing a little.

The berry scent reappears again. It seems almost different this time. This time, there is a stronger smell of earthiness and something undefinable. It has a sense of vagueness that's just enough to make you want to inhale again and again to know what you're really smelling. She inhales again more deeply.

"Are you smelling the perfume again?" Chloe looks down to see Maxine staring at her. She nods blushing a little. "You really like it."

She then surprises Chloe by lifting her head close to her and leaning in so close that her hair brushes against her nose. Maxine then inhales deeply before leaning back showing confusion.

"You don't smell like any girls I know. All the girls I know smell like…like _something_. You just smell normal, though."

Chloe's blush deepens. She smells 'normal' because she doesn't use any perfume. "O-oh. Is that bad? Should I smell like something?"

Maxine bites her lips a little. "My mom says that a girl's smell should match her clothing, make-up, hair, and personality. That's why she chose berries for me. She says I'm like a growing berry."

"So what should I smell like?"

"I don't know." She says. "Your hair is blonde, though, so maybe lemons?"

"Do you think so?"

"Maybe. Well…my hair isn't the color of any berries I know, so maybe it doesn't have to be your hair." Maxine lights up. "Oh wait, what's your favorite color?"

"Oh, uh, blue."

"Hey, your eyes are blue too." She says staring closely. "So something related to blue? Blueberries? What do you think?"

"It sounds good to me. Whatever you like."

"What I like?" A pause. "Well, I really like those water scents like rain and beaches and stuff. Mom wouldn't buy them for me because she says it doesn't fit me, but I really like them."

"That sounds great."

They fall into a silence where the two of them stare at each other leaving the Monopoly game forgotten. Chloe wonders that Maxine commented on the color of her own eyes being blue when hers are blue too. A really nice shade of blue that seem to lightly glow.

Subconsciously, the question occurs to her of what the two of them were doing, but the moment seems so much more important.

"Chloe! Maxine! I'm home!"

The shout startles them both. Maxine stares towards the door realizing that her friend's father has arrived home as promised. Chloe glances at her friend a little before pushing herself off the floor and walking to the door. Opening it a crack, she returns the shout.

"Hey dad, we're in my room."

"Can you and Maxine come down? I'm going to make you two some pancakes."

"Sure thing, dad."

She returns and helps Maxine up. Smiling, she gestures to the door.

"Hey Maxine, you…you like pancakes, right? Of course you do." She laughs. "C'mon, lets go down and my dad will make us some."

Maxine nods and Chloe leads the way. Downstairs, William is busy in the kitchen making the batter for the pancakes and on the table are two glasses of orange juice.

"Sit down, my young princesses, and your servant shall shortly bring you a mid-afternoon delectable for you both!" William says jokingly.

Maxine sits down first and Chloe takes a seat beside her. Risking a glance at her, Chloe quickly looks away when she thought the other might turn her way. A moment later, she feels Maxine elbow her. Turning back, she sees Maxine grinning playfully. Happy to oblige, she returns the elbow.

A second later, they're both elbowing each other repeatedly which then turns into a small struggle in which they grab each other hands and try to maneuver the other around for a purpose neither really knows.

"Whoa, whoa there. You're both supposed to be princesses, not barbarians." William chides playfully placing two plates stacked full of pancakes on the table. "Now if you two would settle down, lunch is ready. Bon appétit."

Chloe glances at the other side of the room. "We'll eat while watching TV, alright?"

Chuckling, William says, "Well, royalty do deserve the best. Be my guest. By the way, Maxine, your mother called me and says she'll be coming in an hour."

Maxine nods in understanding. Grabbing their plates, she and Chloe go over to the couch and sits down. Chloe walks with slower steps and allows Maxine to choose the channel to watch dismissively. She had known it was only a matter of time before the other girl had to leave. In fact, Vanessa even outright said she is coming around the afternoon.

All the same, she couldn't stop the twinge of disappointment that comes when the time is near.

"I wish you didn't have to go."

The words were muttered half meant for herself but also half hoping that Maxine would hear it. She does and turns to Chloe smiling a little. Instead of saying anything, though, she leans her head on Chloe's shoulders and continues watching the channel. Chloe stiffens momentarily before relaxing against the gesture.

In that moment, they are happy. Sometime down the line – maybe hours, days, months, years – the feeling that ties them together then might not hold, but for now, it didn't matter.

William is in the background cleaning, she is sitting here with Maxine, and the silence around them soothes their hearts letting them forget about any troubles they might or will have.

When Maxine's phone rings some time later, Chloe's demeanor saddens already knowing who it is. Her fear is confirmed when she hears the word 'mom' and when Maxine says she's coming. After hanging up, she gets off the couch and stands in front of Chloe.

"My mom is here."

Chloe nods sullenly. "I know." She gets up quickly. "I'll walk you out?"

"Sure. Just let me get my stuff first."

It isn't that far but Chloe wanted to walk her all the same. They runs upstairs to grab her backpack and stuffed bear and Chloe also picks up the other two volumes of the manga they were reading to give to Maxine.

"Don't forget these. Be sure to read them, okay?"

"Yeah, I can't wait to find out what happens next."

As they come back down, Chloe rushes ahead to open the door for her and Vanessa can be seen sitting in a small car waiting patiently.

Maxine stops at the door. "I had fun being here, Chloe. Thanks for letting me borrow your comics."

"Yeah, no problem. I, uh…" She hesitates a little. "I would like it if you come back sometime soon."

"I'd like that too. When I come back, we should read more comics and make more of those chip sandwiches. Maybe not too much next time, though. I really have to watch my weight or my mom will get mad at me."

Chloe frowns and stares at Maxine's body once more. She has her puffy coat on again, but she still remembers what she looks like without it. Every time she looks at the other girl, she simply can't see a problem. She's also reminded that Maxine says her mom thinks she should look like her.

"Maxine, I don't think you need to be thin. You look fine the way you are."

"I want to be thin."

"But you look fine the way you are now."

"You don't understand, Chloe, you're already thin." Maxine's voice rises a little. "You don't have to work at it like I do. You're naturally like it."

Frustrating builds in her a little. "But you're fine naturally too. I don't see why you need to change."

"You don't understand."

Abruptly, Maxine turns and leaves. Chloe deflates a little seeing her do so. The tension of the moment now hits her hard and seeing the stiffness of Maxine's departure makes it worse. She watches the car depart and how her friend now doesn't even look at her.

She turns inside and closes the door leaning against it. Somehow, the argument – which only looks like an argument now – seems inconsequential and she can't even find the reason why it happened. If Maxine didn't want to eat chip sandwiches, she would have gladly accommodated her.

Trudging to the couch, Chloe slumps down. The TV is still on, but she doesn't pay it any mind. Guilt flows through her and she wanted to call Maxine immediately to apologize, but feels as if it's a bad thing to do so immediately. Maybe she should wait a day and call to apologize. Or maybe it's a bad thing to bring it up at all? Maybe she should call and say things like how thin and good she looks instead?

What does one do in this kind of situation?

Two hours later, Joyce returns home expressing disappointment that she missed Maxine. As she and William started to chat about their day to each other, Chloe decides to break in.

"Mom, dad, can I ask you something?" When they turn their attention to her, she continues, "Have you ever said something that made the other mad?"

William grins. "Maybe once or twice."

"Once or twice, he says." Joyce scoffs. "We both have, honey. Probably more times than we can remember."

"What did you do to, like, stop the other from being angry?"

Joyce raises an eyebrow. "Well, I would say apologizing is the way to go."

"I would agree too." William begins. "But that would be a case of doing as I say and not as I do. I've always apologized too but it usually comes after a convoluted and badly enacted plan that tries to do the same thing."

"Yes, your dad is a fool like that. One time, he accidentally tore my handknit scarf. I didn't spend that much time on it and wouldn't have really cared. He could have just apologized. Instead…"

"Instead, I scoured several shops and garage sales until I found a new one that looks kind of the same-"

"While not really being the same at all."

"-and I bought it putting it back in the torn scarf's place hoping Joyce wouldn't notice. I also bought your mother several expensive bouquets of roses out of guilt."

"I was already used to his shenanigans by that point, though. Him doing that out of the blue made me suspicious and I spent hours scouring the house looking for what went wrong. It wasn't until I nearly gave up and picked up the scarf to stare at it when I saw that it wasn't mine." Joyce clucks her tongue. "I confronted your father with it."

"I cried. I apologized. She forgave me and…that's it. Another long winded episode that could have ended in an hour if I had just confessed."

Chloe furrows her eyebrows. "Why _did_ you go through all of that instead of just apologizing?"

William makes a face trying to come up with an explanation. "Well, sweetie, it's hard to say. Us men are strange like that. Apologizing usually works, but it never feels _enough_. As if it was too easy. We rather go through a ridiculous trial to redeem ourselves than simply say sorry. That greater effort means a greater apology."

He sighs. "That's a poetic way of putting it. The truth is that I was just afraid your mother would get really angry at me and I didn't know how to apologize. I thought that if I get her a new, similar scarf and buy her presents, it would be better."

"Well, maybe it worked a little." Joyce smiles. "I did really like the bouquets, so it probably softened me up for him. Besides, it is a nice story to tell to our children sometimes, so there's that too."

Chloe nods in understanding trying to imagine the entire scenario in her head. Joyce looks at her daughter curiously.

"Chloe, why did you ask us that? Please don't tell me you and Maxine got into a fight already."

Blushing, Chloe mumbles, "It's not exactly like that…"

"If they did, I couldn't tell." William says. "They were playing with each other and watching TV with their heads on each other's shoulders right before Maxine left. They could have been ready to get married for all I know."

"Is that right?" Joyce's eyes twinkle. "I do so love a good friendship. You know, I had a childhood friend too, Chloe."

"Doesn't everyone?" William jokes. "Making friends as kids is as normal as peanut butter on bread. It's why we were so worried when it took _you_ so long to get one."

"I told you I have friends before." Chloe says annoyed. "Besides, Maxine isn't like them. She's different."

"Yes, she's different in that we've actually seen her."

When Chloe looks hurt, Joyce throws William a pointed look and he becomes sheepish. Clearing his throat, he tries to save face.

"What I mean is that you actually bring her over. It's all good and well to have school friends, but real friends are different. You just said yourself, but hell, me and your mother could already tell. So far, I haven't seen you cleaned your room for any of your other friends."

"Oh lord, yes." Joyce smiles. "Did you even realize how excited you've been for the past few days? Even without saying it, we knew what you were thinking about, which is great. Having a friend you feel that close to is important."

"Important _and_ fun." William says. "It would be terrible if something comes between the two of you and Maxine no longer comes over."

Her father's words chill her. To think that fateful meeting in the diner so long ago leading to a friendship that lasted so short and over something so trivially stupid. The thought pained Chloe unbearably and she wanted to run to Maxine right now and throw her arms around her as if to physically prevent her from going.

Chloe can't let that happen.

That night as she is lying in bed trying to get to sleep and succeeds in only tossing and turning instead as all her thoughts were focused on what to do, what ifs, and what will happen. The regrets keep building to the point where she wants to hit herself or scream to alleviate the build up inside of her.

She imagines going back to the way life used to be. Going to classes, listening to boring lectures, saying hi to Justin outside school, then going home to stare outside the window, and she despairs feeling a sort of terrible haze surround her. She dismisses the thought and thinks of Maxine's face instead.

As she imagines it, that peculiar smell of berries – strawberry passion, was it? – somehow returns and she automatically begin to calm down, but the anxiety of their final apart still eats at her inside.

As sleep overtakes Chloe, the last memory to pass through her mind is of blue eyes.


	4. Chapter 04

**Chapter 04**

Mistakes are difficult to rectify. Sometimes, when the stakes are higher, it becomes even harder to resolve it. You become afraid that it's impossible to fix, so you don't try.

When she asked her father how he apologized after making a mistake, he said that he tried to fix the situation through a convoluted process which was poorly thought out and ultimately didn't work.

As it turns out, all he really needed to do was apologize.

The solution seems so simple and obvious, yet her father chose the harder approach. Now she is taking the same path. The following day during class, Chloe decided that she _must_ see Maxine. She had been unable to sleep and focus through the entirety of her morning classes.

Instead, replays of the Sunday visit occurs endlessly in her mind, and she keeps creating alternate scenarios of how she could have avoided the entire situation or perhaps convinced Maxine she didn't mean it before she left.

And she genuinely didn't mean it. If Maxine wanted to change, Chloe would be happy to support her all the way. Her mouth just says things before she thinks it through and this is hardly the first time it's gotten her in trouble.

So she felt bad and guilty since Maxine left and it basically made attending school worthless as she hardly even heard a word. At noon, she decided she must see Maxine again. Had she been reasonable, perhaps she would have just called and explained herself.

Chloe isn't reasonable, though, so she has the idea instead to skip her final class, find Maxine's school, then apologize face to face when she comes outside.

Just as the bell for the final class of the day rings and all the students head to their last class, she makes her way outside and, using the GPS on her phone, searches up 'Hoover Middle School'. The address pops up with the directions showing a relatively easy two miles walk. A longer trip than she's used to but she can definitely do it.

She pulls a hoodie out of her backpack that she took along for this occasion and slides it on ensuring the hood covers as much of her head as possible. It is chilly out, so the hoodie actually feels nice. Once comfortable, she follows the directions on her phone.

As she goes along, she begins to realize just how little of Arcadia Bay she has actually seen.

The sights become unfamiliar, the houses and stores look different, and the people become unrecognizable. She approaches an impressive looking building with a sign out front indicating that this is what she is looking for – Hoover Middle School.

Hoover is a more impressive building than Chloe had expected. It has a large exterior providing plenty of room and the school itself is huge. Possibly big enough to fit the entirety of Arcadia Junior High into it and still have walking space left.

Checking the time on her phone, she takes a seat on the curb along the school to wait for classes to be over. Patting down her hood, she rests her head on her knees.

To her surprise, they start leaving without her notice until she started hearing footsteps behind her and then sees students passing. A part of that was because there wasn't much talking among the students and no one was really bursting out of the school.

Her eyes roam around trying to find that special girl she came for but she was nowhere to be found. She keeps waiting and the trickle of students – already small to begin with – grows dimmer. The students already outside also slowly disappear as they walk away or get picked up.

Frustrated, but not willing to give up, Chloe continues waiting even as the school becomes quiet and she remains the only person there. Her patience was wearing thin when she hears the door opens again. Looking over, she sees a familiar puffy blue coat.

She looks into the face of Maxine and feels relief flow through her. She wanted to run up and hug her, but nerves hold her back. She reminds herself of the need to say something about her comment yesterday, but is unsure what. She feels the need to practice a line or a speech to make the process go as perfectly as possible but everything she could think of sounds wrong.

When she sees Maxine slowly walks towards where she is, Chloe gets up and runs to hide around the school building. It is a step back rather than the step forward she wanted to take, but she was convinced that had she been forced to do it then, she would have simply made the situation worse. She needed time.

Problem is that Maxine wasn't waiting. Instead, she continues walking away from the school down the street. She second guesses herself several times before slowly following behind at a distance.

Maxine walks alone pausing every now and then to look down at herself and pats her coat before continuing. She keeps her eyes towards the ground for most of trip looking up only to check for traffic or to ensure she doesn't bump into anyone.

Chloe follows along keeping her footsteps silent and trying desperately to think of something to say. Each step makes her mind scramble a little more as she knows they must be getting closer and closer to Maxine's home.

Then they reach the front of a house where Maxine angles herself slightly to walk over the grass towards the front door. She approaches and reaches into her pocket to pull out a key. As she does so, a voice shouts from behind her.

"I'm sorry!"

She freezes. Confused, Maxine turns around and her eyes widen slightly, then lowers in guilt. "Chloe, you're here."

"I'm sorry." She swallows. "Please don't stop being my friend."

Silence. "I…should be saying that to you."

"No, I should. It's my fault."

Chloe comes up to her. "It's my fault. I shouldn't have pushed you- I know I can be pushy, but I don't mean it, Maxine. You look great to me, but if you want to be different, I'll be happy with whatever you want. I didn't mean it. Please don't hate me."

"Chloe, stop."

"When I said those things, I was trying to say it in a good way, not bad. I didn't think it would come out so harsh. I wasn't thinking-"

" _Stop it!_ " Maxine raises her voice a little causing Chloe to flinch. "It's not you. It's me. I was angry at myself."

"…huh?"

She averts her eyes. "When I got angry at you, I was really angry at myself. I feel fine too and I hate keeping up that stupid diet. I can't ever have cookies or chocolate or anything I want."

"So when you questioned it…I agreed with you, but I put so much work into it already. I felt like all my efforts were being attacked. I lost it at you then, afterwards, felt guilty the entire time. Since yesterday, I wanted to say sorry. I was too scared, though."

"I had thought I ruined everything and lost someone I really had fun with."

"You didn't. You didn't." Chloe says. "I don't want this to be over either."

"Chloe, I…" She pauses glancing around and becomes visibly shy. "We've been standing here a while. I…we're not as your house now, but if you like…"

"Hm?" Chloe stares at her. "What is it?"

"Would you like to come to _my_ house? We could talk more inside."

Chloe looks up in surprise. She stares at the house in front of her and realizes that, yes, this is Maxine's house. She also realizes, with a sudden burst of urge, she wants to come into the house.

"Yes, I want to."

Maxine smiles a little. "Alright, lets go in."

She unlocks the door and head in with Chloe following along. They place their shoes on a rack near the door and they walk through the living room then up a set of stairs with Maxine leading the way. All the while, Chloe stares around in utter amazement.

A long time ago, during a talk her parents were giving her about the importance of money, Chloe argued asking why should they worry since they were rich? When asked why she thought that, Chloe said it's because she seen them depositing large wads of bills at the bank. Her parents laughed.

Her dad, William, responded that half that money went into bills, a quarter into necessities, and that final precious quarter often goes to feed the family squid – 'family squid' being his endearing term for the miscellaneous and unpredictable costs that seems to pop up every month. If you do not feed the squid with a lot of money, it will drag you down to the abyss.

He said the best way to tell if someone is rich is not by the money they have in their hands, but by the money they have in their 'foundations'. That is how much they spent on the things that matter most. Most of these things can't be seen, but one very easy to see thing is the home.

At the time, she didn't see how that changes anything because it seems like they had a very nice house. Now she might have an idea what her father meant. Maxine is wealthy.

This realization occurs to her as she is led upstairs. The house contained nice furniture and sophisticated décor. Furthermore, everything just looks so utterly _fresh_ – as if they were newly purchased. It was almost like walking into a showroom in a way.

Prior to setting foot into Maxine's room, she had expected to see something equally nice. As she steps inside, though, she found it was…empty. The room is shockingly bare.

There was a small bed placed near a corner and, beside that, an office desk. Near the door is a hanging stand where she and Maxine put their backpacks. The wall had two paintings depicting calm scenery. Aside from these few items, the room didn't have anything else.

If she didn't know this room belonged to Maxine, she wouldn't have even known if it belonged to a boy or a girl due to no distinguishing characteristics. There wasn't a speck of 'feminine' color anywhere. Even the walls were a plain champagne color.

"Your house is really nice." Chloe says with sincerity. "It's so much nicer than mine."

Maxine frowns. "I thought yours was better."

"Wha-?" Chloe sputters flabbergasted. "Why? Your room is incredible. It's-" She glances around. "-it's huge. Your room is as big as my living room."

Glancing around as if to confirm this herself, Maxine shrugs, "I guess. I never really thought about it."

"Where's all your stuff, though?"

"Stuff? What stuff?"

"Like all the things you own."

"Oh. I keep panda bear inside my closet." She goes over to take the bear out placing it near the closet door. "I also keep my textbooks inside my desk."

Chloe furrows her eyebrows. "What about your toys and games and that kind of thing. You also said you read comics, right? Where are they?"

Maxine looks down. "My mom says I'm not allowed to have those kinds of things. Those comics I read are at the library in school; they weren't mine."

Her mouth drops in surprise. Chloe asks, "Not allowed to have them _at all_? So wait, what do you do for fun?"

Twiddling her fingers, Maxine says, "I read books and I watch some TV. Most of the time, I have to study, though. It's the only way to ensure my future."

That sounded like something a parent had said. "So you spend most of the time watching TV and reading?"

"Not really. I study most of the time."

Chloe tries to think of a life where she would have to spend all her time studying…and even the idea of it seemed terribly boring. She wonders how Maxine can do it.

Then it occurs to her that if her parents enforce it, 'can do it' isn't the right choice of words. She has to.

"Your life is tough." Maxine looks at her. "You have to do so much. You can't have comics, you have to study all the time, you're not…allowed to have too many sweets. My life revolves around comics."

Immediately remembering yesterday, Chloe immediately backtracks, "Not that that's bad! If you want to do this, it's great!"

Maxine shakes her head her eyes downcast. "You don't have to hide it. I'm boring."

"What? No, I didn't say that."

"You don't have to. I know it." Maxine sits on her bed sighing. "I think so too. I don't do anything. I don't go out because I'm not allowed to. Even if I were, I wouldn't know where to go. I'm just…a boring girl."

"Maxine…you're not. I promise you're not."

"Stop saying that. I know I am. Other kids told me already."

Chloe bites her lips. "I don't know why they would say that. I like being around you."

"You haven't been around me, though. You would get bored if you do stay." She takes a deep breath. "On Monday, I have piano practice. On Tuesday, gymnastics and calisthenics. Wednesday, I have to focus on studying. Thursday, it's the piano again."

With each listed item, Chloe becomes more and more incredulous. Chloe's entire week melds together because she does nearly the same thing every day. Go home, do homework, play games or listen to music, then go to sleep. Not necessarily in that order.

"On Friday, it's gymnastics and calisthenics again. Saturday is, well, it's usually piano again, but, this week, my mom had something different planned. Hold on." She walks to the head of her bed and fingers a paper pinned to the wall. Chloe's eyes widen realizing it's a weekly schedule. "Oh right. This Saturday, my parents want me to try a hand at painting; they say it's good for the spirit. Then on Sunday, I usually do some kind of exercise then study afterwards. If I have some kind of work or recital coming up, I have to do that instead."

"That's…oh…it's…" Chloe struggles to come up with some words. "That sounds hard."

"They, but usually only starting by the second hour."

"Second…hour? Wait, how many hours are you doing these things for?"

"It varies, but usually three. My mom will let me finish early if I do well." She glances at Chloe's face and becomes distressed. "I knew it. You think I'm boring."

"No…no! That's not it!" Chloe clears her throat. "I'm just surprised. That's all. You are the hardest working girl I know. I'm happy if you like doing all this, though."

"…I don't." Maxine whispers sitting down against her bed. Her voice rises. "I don't like it. I want to read comics and play games. I don't want to do the stupid piano anymore. Nobody even likes it. Every time I say I can play music, they ask if I can play the guitar."

"If I had a choice, I would do something I like. I want to read comics, play games with you, or something else really cool." Her expression becomes worse. "But I don't have a choice. These things are what my parents want me to."

Chloe didn't know how to respond, especially when Maxine is so obviously upset. What can she do, though? If it was another kid, Chloe could maybe beat the other kid up or something, but against her own mother? So she remains silent.

"That's why I'm boring, Chloe. I don't have anything anybody wants."

Swallowing, Chloe walks over and sits besides Maxine. "You don't have to have anything. I only wanted to be with you." Her gaze makes her blush. "Truth is that I don't have anything either."

"What? What about your comics and games? Your mom also makes great food."

Chloe bites her lips. "You're the first person to ever be interested in my comics and games. When you were, you don't even know how happy I was. I've been dying to show someone – anyone – my comics for so long."

"And those games? Before you, I've only ever played them with my parents. It isn't the same. Playing with you is way different than my mom and dad. I had so much more fun."

Maxine looks at her. "Are you telling me the truth?"

"Cross my heart."

Silence reigned for the longest time. It was a little suffocating and Chloe tried to get a reaction by reaching out with a finger and trace it alongside Maxine's pinky. The other girl lets out a little giggle then pulls away blushing.

She sighs, "Chloe, I just wish I had something for us to do besides sit on my bed."

Hardly a moment passes before a grin comes onto Chloe's face. Fact is there are a few things that don't need game boards or comics.

"I have an idea." Maxine turns to her. "Your house is huge, so…want to play hide and seek?"

Before her eyes, Maxine transforms and becomes brighter. Her eyes light up with excitement and she leans in close.

"I love that idea! Lets play."

"Alright then, rock, paper, scissors to see who will be first to count."

They play a game and Chloe wins when Maxine's rock is captured by her paper. They set up some quick rules wherein the hider can't go outside or hide in basements/attics – Chloe didn't even realize the house had either – while seeker had to count to 30 and can't peek.

As soon as Maxine covered her eyes and starts counting, Chloe bolts out her room and runs downstairs skipping two steps at a time. She hurriedly looks around then lies down on the floor in the front of the couch. She silences her breathing.

Shortly after, she hears footsteps and it immediately heads her way. She curses internally realizing Maxine must have heard where she ran.

The footsteps stops once it reaches downstairs, then becomes slower. It also becomes steadily louder. Chloe keeps her eyes to the couch end and, eventually, Maxine appears tiptoeing towards another room not seeing Chloe behind her.

Taking this moment, Chloe stealthily maneuvers backwards then gets on all four to crawl towards the stairwell intending to go all the way back up. Just as she got halfway, a body lands on top of her.

A giggling voice exclaims, "Found you!"

She rocks her hips trying to knock Maxine off and make a run for it, but the other girl wraps her arm around Chloe's chest to prevent it. Chloe raises her hands to concede defeat.

"Alright, it's my turn to hide now." She declares getting off Chloe.

"Gotcha." Chloe pushes herself up too. "I'll count to 30 now, so you go hide."

She walks to the wall, crosses her arms, then leans her head against it to begin counting. Slowly and loudly. She hears footsteps behind her going upstairs and grins to herself knowing where to go already.

Chloe finishes her count, then turns and runs up the stairs. She quickly glances around then begins checking every room skipping only Maxine's figuring the other girl wouldn't try such an obvious place.

The rooms are a feast for her eyes. Their bathroom is beautiful and large, they had what looks like a guest room and even that is nicely decorated. Eventually, Chloe wanders into a room that holds a large bookcase, a make-up desk, a large laptop, work desk, and more.

She already suspected it is the bedroom of Maxine's parents and a few visible portraits confirms it. Getting to work, she checks underneath the bed and inside the closet. She opens one door thinking it was another closet only to be surprised to find another bathroom in there, albeit a smaller one. A bathroom inside a bedroom.

While checking the back of the bookcase, she catches sight of some of the books. Most were thick, frightening looking ones with long titles. She didn't pay attention to most of them, but some happens to get her attention.

Alongside the less interesting books, she notices titles such as 'Piano Solos', 'Piano: Traditionalist', "Vrksasana Yoga', and 'Childhood Education'. These all sound like things Maxine does. Her books are kept in her parents' room?

Shaking off the distraction, Chloe gets back to her task. She searches a few more small areas where someone of Maxine's size might fit in, but finding nothing, she abandons the room. When she gets close to Maxine's room again, she pauses and walks in. Right away, she notices the closet door is not fully closed.

Now feeling foolish that she didn't check this room off the bat, she makes a point to return Maxine's favor from before. Walking up to the closet, she talks out loud.

"I know you're in there."

It takes a moment. "No, I'm not."

"Is that right? Well then, if Maxine isn't in there, I'm going to just have to grab whoever is."

She opens the door fully and reaches in grabbing a body just as a shriek resounds. There is a brief struggle, but Chloe easily pulls Maxine out of the closet and lifts her into the air. The other girls continue wiggling and contouring, but Chloe holds on tight. She walks over to the bed and tosses Maxine into the center before jumping on her to engage in a tickle attack.

However, it seems the younger girl learned a thing or two since their last meeting. Chloe was only able to tickle her for a few seconds before Maxine's hand quickly shoots out and wraps around her chest holding her arms down.

Chloe looks down, then back up grinning. "Over already? I really can't use the same trick on you too many times."

She laughs. "My piano tutor says the same thing. She likes to play back songs to me and make me repeat after her, but she sometimes does it wrong on purpose. If I don't notice it, she punishes me. She has to keep finding new tricks, though, because I remember what she does."

"Piano tutor? Oh, right." Chloe says remembering. "I almost forgot you can play the piano. You have a teacher too?"

"Yeah. She doesn't call herself that, though. She tells me to call her _professeur de piano_ or as Ms. Muzyki."

"Sounds fancy." Chloe laughs. "Is she hard?"

"She was in the beginning, but I think I'm used to her now so I have an easier time. She has been complimenting my playing more and more recently." Awe must have shown on her face because Maxine shyly looks away. "I'm not that good, really."

"Your teacher thinks you are. It sounds amazing."

Maxine hesitates a little. "Would you like to hear me play?"

She didn't even need to think before shouting _yes_.

Giggling, Maxine leads her out of the room and back downstairs. They walk through the living room into another room where there is a wooden piano. Maxine sits on a simple padded leather seat and pats the spot beside her. Chloe eagerly takes a seat looking on in anticipation.

"What are you going to play?"

She hums in thought. "How about I play some songs and you try to guess what I'm playing?"

"That's what you teacher does, right?"

"Right, but I won't try to trick you. I'll play it right."

She didn't think she would recognize any piano music, but Chloe is more than happy to try. "Got it. Give me a shot."

Thinking again, Maxine then places one hand on the piano and slowly plays some notes. Almost immediately, Chloe recognizes the tune.

" _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_!"

Maxine stops playing and giggles. "Yep!" She licks her lips. "Alright, try this one."

She plays another tune. This time at a much quicker pace. Again, Chloe recognizes the tune immediately. Jingle Bells. Though it sounds fundamentally the same, hearing it on a piano is an entirely different experience. Somehow it seems calmer. She wonders if it's simply an effect of the piano or if it's Maxine playing.

" _Jingle Bells_." Maxine stops and nods. "Give me a tough one now."

"A tough one? I don't know…oh wait, here's one I had trouble recognizing at first."

She begins playing and, again, Chloe immediately recognizes the tune. How could she not? She hears it regularly at church. The tune is _Amazing Grace_.

Chloe pause in thoughtfulness. Maxine had trouble recognizing this song? Chloe glances around the room and tries to recollect the living room. She doesn't remember any Christian memorabilia.

Her own house had quite a few crosses, mini Bibles, and a figurine or two of Jesus Christ. Whenever she visits her grandparents or her parents' friends' homes, she recalls seeing similar objects. However, she doesn't recall any here. Does that mean Maxine isn't a believer? Or are her family 'invisible' believers preferring to hold their faith in silence rather than showy displays?

If she isn't a believer, it would be a shame because her rendition of the song really fills Chloe's heart with warmth and sets her mind adrift. She leans into Maxine a bit just listening to the tune. Before she knew it, Maxine plays finishing notes and the tune ends.

Maxine looks at her. "You really like that song?"

"Yeah, _Amazing Grace_ is one of my favorite songs. Whenever we hear it at church, it always grabs my attention. The way you play it is just so nice."

Her cheeks turn red. "Thanks, Chloe." Collecting herself, she continues, "You're good at this. Let me try a harder one. I'm not really good at this song, but my teacher says it's a popular one."

Chloe could definitely tell she had less practice with this next one. She hesitates at times and is off-key at others. She couldn't blame Maxine, though. It sounds and looks more complex than the other tunes.

She also doesn't know what it is. She gets the vague sense she heard it somewhere before, but she simply couldn't drudge up a name. When Maxine stops and looks at her waiting, she grins sheepishly and shrugs.

"This one, I don't know. I think I heard it before but I'm not sure."

"It's called _Für Elise_ by B…Bat?...Be…Beethoven! That's his name. _Für Elise_ by Beethoven."

Chloe smiles helplessly. She has no idea who Beethoven is. Perhaps he's really famous and she simply doesn't know.

"Let me try this one."

Another tune that Maxine clearly has less practice at. It's a slower tune and it's very calming. Later on, it becomes more upbeat. The tune is catchy and easy to tap a foot to. Chloe also swears she heard this song before. She heard it and she has no idea what it's called.

Again, when she finish playing and looks at Chloe, she could only shrug.

"It's called _Pachelbel's Canon_." Maxine looks unsure here. "I…can't remember the name of the guy who made it. I know his last name is Pachelbel like the name of the song, but I don't remember his first name."

"It's a nice song." Chloe says. "I heard it before too, but I don't remember where."

"Yeah, my teacher says this song is used everywhere though most people don't know it."

"That's cool. Okay, give me another."

Maxine blushes. "I don't know any other good ones. Most of the ones I'm good at are simpler stuff, so you can probably guess them right away."

"Oh. Okay." Chloe colors a little too. "If it's okay with you, I was wondering if you could play _Amazing Grace_ again?"

"I'd love to."

And she does as Chloe listens attentively. As she only plays this tune now, there seem to be a difference to it as if she's putting more of herself into it.

Chloe peeks at Maxine's hand moving along the keyboard and the fluidity of the movement hypnotizes her. She couldn't fully follow the movement, but that adds to its appearance rather than detract.

She leans into Maxine and drifts off again, though she tries to keep a sliver of attention to the playing wanting to witness music flow from her friend's hands. A glance at Maxine's face assures her that she doesn't mind their proximity and, in fact, looks like she's enjoying it.

Neither is aware just how long they kept at this. When Maxine finishes the song, she simply starts over. Several times, she even adjusts the song playing it more soulfully or in a more upbeat way. In one rendition, she adds a colorful finale that completely changes the style of the song making Chloe giggle uncontrollably against her.

Lost in their enjoyment, it took the sound of the door opening and shutting to awaken them. Maxine stops playing abruptly, looks at Chloe, then stands up to go peek into the living room.

"Maxine." The voice of her mother calls out. "Were you just practicing the piano? That's good."

Vanessa walks into view and bends down hugging her daughter before she stiffens noticing Chloe. She gets up looking speculatively. "You're…the Prices' daughter, Chloe, right?"

Chloe gets up and stands at attention feeling apprehension replace the warm feelings. "Yes, Mrs. Caulfield."

"Dear, I had no idea you were coming. Maxine, you have to inform me before bringing your friends over, understand?"

"Yes, mom."

"It's not her fault, Mrs. Caulfield." Chloe quickly says. "I sort of surprised Maxine by my coming too."

Vanessa raises an eyebrow. "I see. Well, I can let it pass now, but you _must_ call ahead first in the future, dear."

"Yes, ma'am. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. You may stay for-" She checks the clock. "-another hour, but then Maxine must get back to her tasks. She has an upcoming piano recital. Right, Maxine?"

"Yes, mom."

Chloe looks over in surprise. She has an upcoming recital? How does that fit in with the schedule she learned before?

Vanessa must have noticed her surprise. She elaborates, "My little girl here has a habit of slacking off without the right prodding, so her father and I ensure she stays busy and productive. She needs our help now. Once she is old enough, this will become habit and she'll always be productive on her own."

Chloe nods in understanding, though she didn't really understand it. She can only suppose that all that studying and practicing must be why Maxine is so talented, though she hopes that the other girl could still have some time to spend with her.

"Anyway, the two of you run along upstairs and play in Maxine's room. I have some extra work to do. Remember. Only one hour."

The two nods to Vanessa's words before quickly running away. Inside Maxine's room, Chloe thinks of the time nervously now knowing she can't stay much longer. She knew from the start she couldn't stay forever, but she had thought that perhaps it would be a little longer. It's not even dark yet!

"What do you want to do?" Maxine asks.

"I don't know. Anything is okay with me." She bites her lips. "Say, did you get a chance to read those manga?"

"I wanted to, but I didn't have time yet."

"Then lets read them together."

Maxine's eyes light up excitedly and she runs to her desk taking out the manga volumes lent to her. Chloe jumps on the bed patting the spot beside her. Maxine climbs on lying close beside her.

Opening one of the manga, they start reading this time with Maxine leading the page turning. As before, much of their reading is with Maxine remarking on strange cultural differences she notices and Chloe giving what details she does know. Chloe pays attention, though her mind drifts to the time now and then.

Eventually, it arrives. Vanessa's voice calls out informing them that playtime is over. Chloe groans as soon as she heard the voice, but stops in surprise as Maxine groans too. They look at each other and cover their mouths giggling.

Maxine, her face a little flush, says, "I rather read manga than study or do piano right now."

"So you really don't like the piano at all?"

"I just don't. My mom says it's good for me, but I don't get it. No one else I know does it. Even the girls my mom tries to make my friends do dance, not play piano. Everyone keeps asking if I play the guitar, so maybe I should do that instead."

"You'd look cool like that." Chloe laughs doing an air guitar. "It's hard to rock out even with the best song on a piano."

Chloe only said that to make her happy. Truth is that the Maxine's rendition of _Amazing Grace_ never left her mind and, even then, she still wishes she could keep hearing it.

Even if she doesn't enjoy it, Chloe couldn't help but already feel that her friend's playing skills are essential to her character.

"My teacher played really hard songs to impress me before. Even the hardest ones don't sound…'rocky' or anything. They're all soft and calming. It's like napping music." Maxine frowns. "I don't want to make anyone nap. I want to play a song that, like, makes you dance, Chloe."

"Hey, I'll dance to _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star_ if you like."

"No, that's embarrassing."

" _Maxine! Chloe!"_ Vanessa calls again.

Looking down at the manga on the bed, Maxine's face drops. She picks them up and holds them out to Chloe who stares back confused.

"Are you finished with them already? I thought you said you haven't read yet."

"I haven't, but I just realized that maybe I won't be able to. It'll take me way too long and I don't feel right keeping it until I finally get a chance to read. I just don't have that much free time."

"But you really like the story, don't you?"

"I do and I want to read so badly, Chloe." Maxine says unhappily. "But studying and the piano won't wait for me."

Chloe scowls equally unhappy at seeing her friend's demeanor. In a snap judgment, she comes up with the solution.

"Then I'll give them to you. As a gift."

Maxine looks up in surprise. "Really? Are you sure?"

"Positive. It'll make me happy if you keep it. I…please think of me when you read them, okay?"

Looking at the manga more closely, Maxine hugs them to her chest before walking over to place them on top of her desk leaning them against the wall. She takes pain to straighten them to her satisfaction.

Once done, she returns, leans in, and kisses Chloe on the cheek. This startles Chloe so much that she takes a step back and covers her face in embarrassment. Maxine is equally embarrassed by her action and she smiles sheepishly.

"Thanks, Chloe. I'll leave them like that on my desk and, before I go to sleep, I'll see them and think of you."

Chloe's blush deepens. "T-thanks, Maxine. That makes me happy."

"Alright, lets go down. I'll walk you."

Maxine grabs her hand and leads her downstairs where Vanessa is waiting. She looks at the two girls with slight annoyance for taking so long. Turning to Maxine first, she bends down to look at her daughter in the eyes.

"Maxine, dinner is baking. It'll take about a half hour to complete. I want you to practice calisthenics until then. Understood?"

"Yes, mom."

Chloe's eyes widen a little. Wasn't that supposed to be on Tuesdays and Fridays? Or is she actually supposed to do them a little everyday too?

"Good girl. Now go."

Maxine walks off into the piano room glancing back at Chloe before leaving. Chloe waves good bye weakly then lets her hand drop. Vanessa turns to her next.

"Now dear, when is your mom coming?"

"My mom…? Oh! Oh no, I'm just going to walk home."

She looks taken back. "Walk home? But don't you live nearer the central area? That must be over an hour's walk." She glances out the window. "Plus it's getting dark."

Chloe glances out in confusion. It's a little closer to twilight than before but it's hardly dark. It probably won't be for another good hour or two.

"It's fine, Mrs. Caulfield. I'll be able to get home pretty quickly and it's an easy walk."

Vanessa shakes her head. "No, dear. That is just not right. Young girls can't walk that far and at this time. Even I don't feel safe walking at night. Come with me. I'll drive you home."

Without waiting for a response, Vanessa goes to the door and grabs her keys. She turns to the piano room, "Maxine, I'll be driving your friend home! If I'm not back within a half hour, turn off the oven. Understood?"

Her daughter shouts back a confirmation. Nodding, Vanessa holds the door open expectantly looking at Chloe. She shuffles through and the two of them goes into the car.

On the way, Vanessa didn't speak much. Not that Chloe would know how to converse with her, but the silence was a little thick. On a whim, she decides to comment on the only subject the two of them had in common.

"I'm sorry for coming unannounced. I didn't realize Maxine was so busy. She told me about her schedule and it's really intense."

Vanessa glances at her assessing. "Yes, she is. It's important to keep her mind and body occupied for good health."

"I really like her piano playing. She played some songs for me."

"Did she? Which ones?"

Chloe tries to recall. " _Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Jingle Bells, Amazing Grace,_ and, uh, there were some German- oh, right, _Für Elise_ and something called 'Pachelbel'."

Vanessa frowns a little. "Some of those are good decent compositions, but I wish Maxine had played you her better ones. Recently, she started work on a sonata by _Mozart_ and I think she gotten good enough that you might have liked it."

"Oh no, she was really good and I really like her." Chloe assured her. "I also guessed she might have known more. I saw her books in your bedroom."

"Hm? Oh, those aren't hers. Maxine's books are either in her room, the living room, or the kitchen. I can watch her there to make sure she's doing her work. The books you saw in my room are mine."

She blinks in confusion. "But I saw books about piano and exercise and stuff."

"They're mine." Vanessa nods. "Everything I teach Maxine, I try to learn alongside her. I try to learn the same things she learned alongside her, so I got those books for myself. I can hardly make sure she's playing the piano right if I don't know how it should be played, right?"

"That's seriously impressive." Chloe says slowly. "Are you a big fan of the piano? Is that why you wanted Maxine to play it? And why you're learning it?"

"Not really." Vanessa says surprising Chloe again. "I wanted Maxine to play it more as something to keep her mind occupied intellectually. I wanted her to learn and grow and not turn to silly TV shows for entertainment. I ended up picking the piano, but it could have been anything. Violin, painting, or, really, even knitting."

"As for why I'm learning it," She continues, "I do it so I can know when she plays incorrectly and how to correct her. I actually do this with everything she learns. I study her school textbooks alongside her. I exercise with her. I learn the piano with her. Everything she does, I'm right there besides her offering my support and expecting her best."

Chloe tries to imagine Joyce hovering over her shoulder making sure she does all her homework correctly. On one hand, even the idea of it makes her stomach do a flip. On another hand, it actually sounds kind of nice in a strange sort of way.

Outside the car window, some familiar landmarks passes letting Chloe know they are close to her home. She was tempted to remain silent the rest of the ride, but there was one particular question that was burning inside of her.

"Mrs. Caulfield, could Maxine- uh, I mean, does she ever have free days?"

"Free days?"

"I mean days where she doesn't have anything to do. I was thinking that maybe I could come over then? Or maybe she could come to my house?"

Vanessa smiles lightly. "Maxine doesn't have such days, dear. Even on her breaks from school, I work to make sure she has something to do. That Sunday she was able to spend with you? We cancelled some of her practice time to do so and she had to make up for it later."

They didn't talk much from that point on. Chloe really wanted to ask if Maxine could take a break from her schedule sometime, but the more she hears, the more she gets the sense that this is not something the other girl would normally get.

It occurs to her how different their lives are. Whereas Chloe has a large amount of freedom and her parents take a hands-off approach to her, Maxine seem to have the opposite. Little freedom and parents who seem to hover over her constantly.

She wonders which one is truly better. Maxine is genuinely talented and it wouldn't far off to say Chloe would be more than happy to have the same skills. However, the girl says she hates having to do those things and would rather do what Chloe does.

So which is right?

Her house really isn't that far from Maxine's and Arcadia Bay lacks traffic lights, traffic, and life in general. So the ride ended up not being that long at all.

When they arrive at her house, Chloe is surprised to see her mom's car already there. She shouldn't have been back for at least another hour or so. Maybe even longer. She gets out of the car and thanks Vanessa. The woman smiles lightly, but doesn't leave.

She goes to open her door not even bothering to take out her keys knowing her mom left it unlocked for her. She turns back to wave to Vanessa who only now begins to drive off having seen Chloe enter her house safely. Chloe watches her still wondering if perhaps she should have asked more.

"Chloe? Chloe, is that you?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"Chloe Price, have I not told you before about contacting me if you're going to be gone far past school?" Joyce comes out looking crossed. "We got you a cell phone for a reason, young lady. Your father and I like to think we're very open and forgiving parents, but we have our limits too."

"I _know_ and I'm sorry, okay? It's just…I was seeing Maxine, okay?"

Joyce pause, then smiles lightly. "Ah, I can understand a little better now. Would this happen to be about the question you asked us yesterday? Did you and Maxine make up?"

"Yeah." Chloe grins. "It was awesome. Did you know she can play the piano? A lot of songs too. I love her playing of _Amazing Grace_ so much."

"My goodness, that little one is talented, ain't she?"

The grin disappears from her face. "Yeah, she is…but she works really hard for it. She's so busy and she does so much. I think it's a miracle I've even seen her twice to begin." Chloe thinks a moment. "No, not a miracle. After all, I went twelve years without seeing her."

"Why think about that, Chloe? All that matters it that you found each other now."

"Yeah, you're right. It's just that I was hoping we could spend some more time together, but that won't be possible if she ends up being busy all the time." Chloe bites her lips. "She has something to do every day of the week. She practices piano for hours. Even on holiday breaks, her mom plan things to keep her busy the entire break."

Joyce frowns. "I think Vanessa is a fine woman, but I don't understand why she's so strict on little Maxine. This ridiculous diet she has her on and now this schedule? It's fine to ensure your child is keeping up, but isn't this a bit much?"

Chloe nods. "I think so. I want to see her so much more, mom, but I'm scared that I'll end up being a bother to her." A sigh escapes her lips. "You know, I think I'm really beginning to like her."

" _Beginning_ to? Good Lord, Chloe, the things I've been seeing you do for this girl. If you do all of that and you're only beginning to like her, what will you do when you actually really like her?"

"Marry her, I think."

Joyce raises an eyebrow. "Well, I'm sure you two will have a very happy marriage. For now, though, would you mind helping me make dinner?"

She nods and follows behind Joyce into the kitchen where they begin to prepare dinner. Despite the fact that her mother works at a diner and is an exceptional cook, Chloe does not have the skill for it. Joyce never really taught her how to cook having never had time and Chloe having never shown interest.

Fortunately, she is not completely incompetent. As an assistant, she is capable at bringing the correct tools and ingredients when asked and she could perform the more physical labors like washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen, and wrapping a plate for William.

Originally, Chloe had figured she would have had to make a simple dish and eat herself before going to bed. As her mother arrived home early – explaining that she had to close early due to a situation involving unruly patrons – she instead gets to eat with her mother before both turn in to bed.

She had expected dinner to be awkwardly silent, but once small talk started, it slowly got very lively. Mainly because they had so much to update each other on. Joyce is hardly even aware of what classes Chloe is in and, though she frequently threatens and stresses its importance, she doesn't know what kind of grades she gets.

So Chloe tells her and she, in turn, inform Chloe of how things are faring at the diner. Much of this involves meeting interesting strangers or visits from the eccentric owner of the diner who mostly spends his visit puttering about in the kitchen for maybe an hour or two before leaving.

The small talk fortunately makes it to the end of dinner when they both clean up and bid each other good night. In her room, Chloe thinks of the day and wonders when would be the next time she could see Maxine.

Curiously, she also compares Joyce to Vanessa and wonders what it would be like if they were switched. Would she become like Maxine? Playing the piano all day while wishing she could read comics instead? Would Maxine become like her? Would the two of them still have found each other?

She wonders if Vanessa is a warm mother. The scene of her coming home and hugging her daughter replays in her mind, but, simultaneously, she wonders if Maxine might secretly resent her mother for forcing her to do things she doesn't want to do. Would she be happier with a mother that bakes cookies and brownies?

Briefly, she imagines Vanessa in a 'Two Whales' apron making a batch of cookies and the thought makes her giggle. As much as the idea of Joyce crossly reminding her that it's time for her to do calisthenics.

As she falls asleep, she falls asleep to the phantom melody of _Amazing Grace_.


	5. Chapter 05

**Chapter 05**

A woman, Vanessa Caulfield, once impressed onto Chloe that wanting something requires that one works at it.

She mulled and thought over the words for a long time. She never _really_ had to work for something. Good grades? She found school easy. Chores? The little she had to do weren't that difficult.

However, the more she put thought into it, the more true it seem. Once she does believe, she decides that she has to work much harder for what she wants too.

Now Vanessa had spoke in the context of academic excellence and achieving success, but Chloe didn't really want that. She wanted Vanessa's daughter. Only thing is that she gets the feeling that what she wants makes what Vanessa wants harder as they both want to monopolize Maxine's time.

However, she figures it's fair game, right? If one has to work at what one wants, then Vanessa simply has to work harder to get what she wants.

For Chloe, the process happened almost naturally. She started by calling Maxine more frequently. Phone conversations can be difficult, though, and neither one of them really knew how to keep it up. However, they were willing to learn together.

Maxine had the fantastic idea to read the manga Chloe gifted her over the phone so that they both enjoy it. Chloe returns the favor by reading other manga in her collection. This eventually evolved into them doing other things; mostly things Maxine isn't allowed to do at home.

She isn't allowed to watch TV? Chloe loudly plays a TV show and narrates events to her over the phone. She wants to read a comic? Chloe reads it to her.

That was perhaps the more surprising part of this. As much effort as Chloe put in to be together, she would never demand that the other girl try as hard knowing how busy she can be. That didn't stop Maxine from giving as much she gets, though.

One day, Maxine gives Chloe a huge surprise when she calls her and asks her to open her front door. She runs downstairs three steps at a time and throws the door open and there was the brunette smiling. As it turns out, she got the idea to walk to Chloe's house after school after Chloe did the same thing several times.

They spend a few hours watching the TV show Chloe narrated to Maxine. Eventually, the other girl receives a phone call and, shortly after, a crossed looking Vanessa appears at Chloe's house. Maxine sheepishly apologizes to her mother for going somewhere without informing her before Vanessa brusquely told her to come along.

Shyly, Maxine pecks Chloe good-bye before leaving with her mother. In a moment of spontaneity, Chloe stops her to return the peck.

Afterwards that little incident, Vanessa got involved more often implementing rules meant to limit such activities. Phone calls had a time limit and surprise visits had to become informed visits – informing both the Caulfields and Prices.

Gifts also become more of a thing. From a perspective, gifts have always been a part of their relationship. After all, their first gift to each other was friendship. However, physical gifts are important too. During one of her visits to Chloe's house, Maxine gives her a bottle of French perfume.

It is a curious thing. It comes in a small clear bottle which Maxine calls a 'crystal decanter' and it has a round top. The perfume inside is a light blue liquid that seem to sparkle. She opens it and sniffs before dabbing a tiny amount on her hair, face, arms, and chest.

This makes Maxine giggles saying that Chloe didn't do it right. She dabs a bit of the perfume on her index and middle finger, then slowly made circles on Chloe's wrist, her elbows, behind her ears, at the crook of her neck, and then below her chin. She explains that applying it at 'pulse points' retains and directs the smell better.

Chloe didn't really understand it, but she continues using the method. In return for the gift, she takes several selfies of her and Maxine together, then later got it printed out to present to her. In a future visit, she notices that Maxine's backpack, once barren, is now housing some of the selfies she gave her.

So they call each other, visit, and give gifts. These were enough at first, but it couldn't last. As time passes and Spring nears its median, Chloe begin slipping in the suggestion that they have a sleepover.

At first, the brunette was hesitant as she was never away from home for an extended period but Chloe was persistent. She showed Maxine the many things she has that can keep them both entertained and proselytize about all the things they can do together. It took some time, but she slowly came around.

So when a time came that they had a three day weekend for teachers' in-service day coming up, they had to convince the Caulfields. Chloe's parents didn't need any convincing.

After another of Maxine's visit, Vanessa was unavailable so her father, Ryan, came to pick up his daughter. In a daring move, Chloe approached Ryan to ask if Maxine could have a sleepover.

Pausing contemplatively, Ryan mutters, "A sleepover. Huh, Maxine never had one before."

"Me neither! I was thinking we could have our first time together because she's my best friend. There is a teachers' in-service coming soon for both our schools and we're both free for three days. How about then? It'll only be three days."

"Well, I don't see a problem in it." He responds cautiously. "I'll talk it over with Maxine's mother and, if she approves, we'll bring her over, alright?"

Chloe nods enthusiastically hoping that Vanessa would say 'yes' and, after an agonizing wait of several hours in which she continuously glances at her phone, Maxine calls her yelling excitedly that her mom approved.

The week before her three day off was one of the longest in Chloe's memory, but it does arrive.

The first day of their stay together begins with Maxine arriving with a large supply of 'necessities'. Her parents actually packed a luggage bag of materials they believed she needed, including a sleeping bag, pillow and blanket, toothbrush, clothes, and toothpaste. Included in the luggage were even bottles of pills designated as multivitamin, diet, and one was meant to help 'focus/intellect'. The only item that was Maxine's was her stuffed panda.

They placed her luggage in the corner of Chloe's room, Panda Bear on Chloe's bed, then the rest of the day is dedicated to the introduction of Chloe's life outside the Price household.

Intending for them to eat first, she brings the both of them to The Two Whales. That day, Joyce couldn't stay home long enough to see Maxine arrive so she was happy to see her daughter come in with her friend and she offers them lavish helpings of hot cakes submerged in blueberries and syrup.

Rather than eating from their own plates, they share and both end up eating from Chloe's plate then moving on to Maxine's.

Both devoured until Chloe feels like she's about to explode and Maxine looks bleary eyed and sick. Even then, as they were about to leave, Joyce packs them a large box of cookies and brownies giving both girls a hug before they depart.

They walked through town passing Chloe's school, parks, and other pieces of Arcadia Bay which Maxine was unfamiliar with despite living here all her life. It appears she had spent most of her life in the area around her house.

"Maxine, what…was it that brought you to the Two Whales diner that day? My birthday."

Taking a moment, Maxine responds, "I think my mom and dad were fighting about something – something about our house, I think. They said they were too stressed to cook, so we decided to go somewhere to eat. I thought we would go to their favorite restaurant, but they wanted something quick and close. My dad saw your mom's restaurant and decided to go in."

The explanation reminded Chloe of their meeting at the giant mall in the city. It seems their initial encounter could have been so easily missed and everything was against it. To think, the girl she's growing to love could have remained unknown by the slightest twist of luck.

"Maxine, ever climbed a tree?" She shakes her head no. "Want to? C'mon, I'll show you!"

They walk over to a nearby tree that had plenty of sturdy looking branches. Chloe tests the lowest one briefly, then lifts herself up onto it demonstrating to Maxine that it was easy and safe.

Climbing back down, she declares, "Okay, it's your turn. You're shorter than me, so I'll help you up."

She bends down cupping her hands together. Maxine puts one foot onto her hands and, with a little effort, she pushes the brunette upwards. Things were going smoothly until Maxine slips and falls. Chloe reacted quickly slamming her body against Maxine's placing one hand against her back and the other under her butt. The method works and the other girl is held against the tree safely not moving.

"Sorry." Maxine says sadly.

"It's alright. So long as you're not hurt. Try grabbing the branch again."

She does as instructed and, with Chloe still holding and pushing her up from underneath, she successfully climb onto the first branch. Afterwards, Chloe lifts herself upwards to sit beside her. Putting an arm around her waist, Chloe leans in.

"Are you alright? You're not hurt, are you?"

"No." She smiles. "I'm fine."

"Good. Want to climb higher?"

Maxine looks up a little unsure, but nods. "Yes, lets try it. Let me do the next one by myself."

She stands on the branch unsteadily preparing to climb up. Despite her insistence on doing it by self, Chloe's hand sneaks out and touches the small of Maxine's back prepare to help her again. She resists the urge to push her only until Maxine is half-way up at which point she moves to help push her up.

This continues until they reach the highest point they were willing to go, which was only a few branches from the top. There, Maxine holds onto Chloe's arm and stares down wide eyed at the height, then at her surroundings.

That tree – as with most others – has long regained its leaves and health with the passing months, so much of the view is blocked by foliage, but the few open spots are enough to gain Maxine's attention. However, what really catches her eyes is when she sees a bird's nest.

Being the adventurous and helpful friend she is, Chloe immediately suggest that they go get it. The problem is merely that the nest was almost near the top and at the further end of the branch.

As Maxine is the smaller of the two of them, it is decided she would be the one to go for the nest while Chloe would hold onto the end of her leg for safety. It was a slow process wherein Maxine cautiously climbed to the right branch then slowly crawls towards the nest as Chloe watches carefully the entire time. Once she had the nest in her hand, Chloe eagerly pulls her back.

The nest is empty but Maxine is so thrilled with it that they decide to keep it as a souvenir. On a whim, Chloe pulls her smartphone out, leans against Maxine's face asking her to hold up the nest, then snaps a shot of the two of them. Showing her friend the photo afterwards, she watches Maxine's eyes gleam excitedly.

"The picture is so pretty. I wish I had a cell phone like yours."

This brings to mind something that has been bothering Chloe for a long time.

"Maxine, your phone is…it seems kind of outdated. Is there a reason you have it instead of a phone like mine?"

"My mom says phones should be for emergencies only, especially when owned by children. She has the same phone as me. She also says she doesn't want me to be distracted by playing on my phone."

"But smartphones are so useful! They're not just for slacking off, they're a serious help."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You can use them to do homework, practice the piano, or use the GPS for your mom to track you in case you get lost. It's extremely useful. Definitely ask your parents to get you one."

Maxine nods. "Yeah. I'm going to ask them when I get home."

As it was getting dark, they decide to head back to Chloe's house. There, they unpacked the box of snacks Joyce baked for them and ate it reading more comics until Maxine yawns asking if she could head to bed early. Being a good host, Chloe, of course, says yes then promptly joins Maxine in getting cleaned up before retiring to sleep.

Then they climbed in Chloe's bed together using her blankets and pillows rendering the materials the Caulfields packed for their daughter useless.

In bed, the two of them lie still not able to sleep easily as they weren't used to sleeping beside another person. This is added to the fact that Chloe's normally bedtime is actually much later.

"Chloe, I can't sleep."

"Me neither. I guess we can talk until we do."

"What about?"

"Erm, how about school? How's yours?"

"I don't know. It's okay, I guess. Nothing really happens there and I get bored easily." Maxine makes a noise. "Wait, it's not all boring. I really like my English class. We read fun books."

Chloe frowns. "I don't like my English class."

"Really? Why?"

"Well, it's because of the teacher. She's…she's such a _bitch_ to everyone." Chloe pauses a moment to see if Maxine minded her cussing. "She likes to make everyone afraid of her and, one time, she embarrassed me in front of the whole class."

"She sounds terrible. Is she always like that?"

"I've never seen her any different." She stops remembering a strange incident. "Well, actually, something weird did happen recently. We just started English again, right? And everyone was waiting for her to come in. When she did, though, we saw she had been crying. Her eyes were red and everything."

"Why?"

"I dunno. She got class started again and looked normal again, so that was that. Before it, I couldn't imagine her…having emotions and stuff. I always thought she was made of something hard inside and nothing could make her feel bad enough to cry. Whatever it is that made her cry must have been really bad. I would really hate to see it."

Maxine makes a noise. "Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for you. I think…the worst things are personal. There are things that make us all cry like Bambi dying or something."

"Bambi's _mom_." Chloe corrects.

"Right, the mom. However, it would be far, far worse if it's something that happens to us specifically, right? Like our grandma dying. My grandma dying might make someone else sad, but it wouldn't make them sad like me. They might not even cry like I would."

Here, she suddenly yawns. "I'm getting sleepy."

Chloe only felt it a little. The reason being that Maxine appears to have a bedtime several hours earlier than her. Noticing her friend's problem, Maxine looks over in concern.

"Is something wrong, Chloe?"

"I'm just having a hard time getting to sleep." She says not commenting on the time.

Maxine makes a tired noise. "Here, I know how to make you sleepy."

A hand is placed on top of Chloe's head stroking her hair. Chloe is initially confused at the contact, but doesn't resist. She looks over at Maxine.

"My dad does this to me sometimes and it always made me sleepy." She explains.

Unfortunately, Maxine ends up drifting to sleep before Chloe did leaving her hand on top of her head. Giggling a little to herself, Chloe closes her eyes slowly losing herself to dreams too.

The sleepover ended without fuss or fireworks and everyone was happy. Later on, though, Chloe hears that the bird's nest they took as a souvenir makes its way into Maxine's room much to the distress of Vanessa who calls it filth.

Time marches on and Maxine comes to increasingly dominate her thoughts and her influence has come into nearly all aspect of Chloe's life.

Daydreams of aimless trips around Arcadia become daydreams of journeys alongside a familiar brunette, doodles of various objects of unimportance turned into artworks of pandas, and even the things such as how she dress for school became a thing that involved Maxine's opinion. Notably, she has grown very fond of the color blue.

There were still parts of Chloe's life which has not taken in the other girl, however. In particular, the thought of learning to apply make-up still remained in the back of her mind, though she never had a chance to start. That was to change.

On an uneventful day, she decides a trip to Hillside Home is in order after having not gone for a while. While heading there, she happens to look through the window of a store she passes everyday and stops as if seeing it for the first time.

The store is a simple mom and pop place selling a variety of locally sourced food, clothing, and other knick knacks. They don't have much variety and the varieties they do have are not well stocked, but they do have their loyal customer base.

Chloe wasn't one of their loyal customers, but something inside got her attention. She walks in going up to the aisle displaying a simple makeup box.

The cosmetics section was never something the store owner wanted, but his wife insisted it be added as she says it would appeal to women. He fought against it at first, but ultimately gave in and ended up having to eat crow when it turns out the section is, indeed, popular.

It never had anything fancy or particularly great, but its appeal lies in the same thing that attracted Chloe. The store is close and held something that interested her.

She grabs the makeup box, then goes to the counter where the store owner scowls at her. He's a crotchety old man anyway, but she gets the idea his real distaste is that he's the type that thinks she's too young to be using make-up. That it'd turn her into a 'jezebel' – a word she learned old men likes to use to refer to women who attracts men too easily.

Considering this is the first and likely last time she'll ever come to this shop, she doesn't care.

"That'll $16.24, young miss."

She silently hands him a $20 then leaves with a muttered 'thank you' upon getting her change. Stuffing the items into her backpack, she turns towards the direction of her home figuring the visit to Hillside Home could wait.

Once inside her house, she quickly runs upstairs, throws her backpack on the floor, then gets out the makeup box.

Sitting on the floor, she stares at it. The box is small enough that she could fit it in her hands so long as she cups both her hands together. It is an obnoxious bright pink color – presumably to indicate it is a feminine product – with glittery text on the top saying 'Her Make-Up Kit'.

Unsnapping the box, she opens it to see that it expands upwards into two compartments with the top one showing a dizzying array of colors and the colors were separated by two vertical grooves possibly meaning that the three sides were meant for different things. They're all just colors, though, aren't they?

The bottom compartment houses a series of…tools? Products? There is a tube of red lipstick and red lip gloss beside each other. After that, there's skin concealer, a blush brush, eyeshadow brush, and eyeliner pencil. Lastly, the box helpfully contains a mirror attached to the top cover, though she intends to use her much larger bathroom mirror instead.

Chloe lets out an unhappy squeak when she realizes that whoever designed this kit didn't deem it necessary to include instructions on what to do. That is unfortunate because she is in desperate need of instructions.

To start, what is the difference between eyeshadow and eyeliner? Also, why are there so many brushes? Does that mean they're not interchangeable? What is the concealer used for? More importantly, what exactly are all the colors on the top compartment and why are they separated into three areas?

She leans back thinking this over. She had picked up this makeup box mainly on a whim born from curiosity that's been boiling inside of her ever since she spotted her neighbor Polly and decided she needed makeup.

This thought also reminds her of why she wanted to do this: to get a boyfriend. Something the other girls seem to have and it seems like she should have too. In actuality, she hadn't thought of it in months, but it seems to come back to her.

However, it was really the thought of being beautiful that drew her attraction. She wants to that others find her appearance appealing. She would especially like to surprise Maxine with a new face once she learns how to do it right.

Sighing, she decides the only way to learn will be to try it. So she picks up the lip stick and lip gloss, and decides to have a go at it. Two hours later, she runs the bathroom and stares at herself. It isn't quite the look she wanted.

Her eyes had dark eyeshadow circling it and her lips are now a deep red. So basically, she looks like a panda with lipstick on. She scowls a bit feeling disappointed. She runs to get her phone and snaps a selfie of herself before returning to the bathroom to take a quick shower.

Later, she none too gently closes the makeup box figuring she'll try it again later.

As it turns out, she wouldn't try it again anytime soon. After that day, she had taken to leaving her makeup box in corner always reminding herself that she'll give it a second try some other time, but that time never comes up.

Perhaps if the test had gone easier, she might have given it another chance. As it is, the only positive thing to come out of it was that she showed the selfie to Maxine who giggles uncontrollably at the photo saying she looks like her stuffed bear. Some time later, Chloe visits Maxine's house again and happens to notice that Maxine painted her stuffed bear's lips red.

So she put the makeup on backburner intending to get to it at some undetermined point which, secretly, she was beginning to see as 'never'. However, it turns out she'll have some help.

On one of the day Maxine was coming over to stay for a while, she had downloaded a piano app on her phone and been practicing some songs. She intended to play some for Maxine as a sort of fun, mock piano performance. Of course, all she really practiced was Twinkle Twinkle Little Star…but she's very confident in her ability.

When the doorbell finally rings, she rushes forward and opens smiling widely. Of course, there stands Vanessa and Maxine, but they came with more than she expected. There is Maxine's familiar backpack, blue puffy coat, and stuffed panda, but she was also carrying some kind of…lunch bag? It was large enough that she had to use its strap on her shoulders instead of carrying it by hand.

"Hey, Maxine." She wraps her arms around her. "I'm happy you're finally here."

"Me too." Maxine replies then whispers. "I brought a surprise."

Chloe's eyes brighten at the possibilities and she pulls Maxine inside her home. There, the two of them stare back at Vanessa who was looking around the house before turning to them.

"Ahem." She clears her throat. "I will be back a little later than usual today. Will your parents mind, Chloe?"

"Oh no, not at all! Please take your time!"

Vanessa nods, then looks at Maxine. "Do you remember the rules, Maxine?"

"Yes, mom." Maxine nods. "Nothing dangerous, only two snacks, and I'm to call you or dad if anything goes wrong."

"Good. Good bye, Chloe."

"Good bye, Mrs. Caulfield."

Without even waiting for her to leave the driveway, Chloe shuts the door then turns excitedly to Maxine who now looks excited too.

"C'mon, I'll show you what I brought in your room!"

Maxine runs ahead upstairs and Chloe quickly follows behinds running two steps at a time. Once inside the room, Maxine sets down her backpack and stuffed panda then shrugs off her puffy coat. She keeps the lunch bag and walks over to place it on Chloe's bed.

"This is it."

"What is it? You didn't bring lunch, did you? I have food already."

"This isn't lunch." She laughs. She opens the bag and Chloe's eyes widen to see an entire set of makeup. "After you showed me that photo, I asked my mom if I could bring the makeup she bought me. I wanted to help you put on makeup."

After a pause, a brilliant smile lights up on Chloe's face. "You know how to put on makeup? And you'll help me?"

Maxine blushes. "I don't really know that much, but I have experience since my mom helps me with it. I'll try to help you too."

"Awesome! Lets do it! Where do we start? What do I do? Wait, let me get my makeup box."

Chloe runs to get the makeup box she bought as Maxine opens her own. Placed beside each other, Maxine's own kit is far more extensive with more tools and supplies. Eager, she sits down in front of Maxine prepared to take whatever is given.

Maxine looks up and examines her face. She blushes at the attention but doesn't look away. Turning to pull out a jar, Maxine opens it and takes out some sort of grooved pad. She turns back to Chloe.

"First, we have to cleanse your face. I'm going to use a skin toner pad to wipe your face, okay?"

She nods and Maxine then lightly holds the side of her face with one hand while wiping the other side with the pad. When satisfied, she switches sides and continues until she nods and puts down the used pad next to the jar. Then she hesitates.

"My mom says it is right to use foundation after cleansing my skin, but I'm supposed to use the right color to match the skin. I only know foundation for my skin color."

Chloe furrows her eyebrows. "Aren't we the same skin color?"

"I think you might be a little darker." She says. "Hold on. My mom told me to do this to find out."

Maxine dabs a small bit of her foundation on Chloe's chin, then she takes out a mini flashlight and shines it onto the area. She looks closely for a moment, then shakes her head.

"I can see it. That means it's not exactly the right color. It's supposed to match your skin." She looks at her bag again. "Lets use concealer instead."

At this point, Chloe realized just how supremely out of her depths she was when she attempted to do this on her own. Cleansing? Foundation? Using a flashlight to inspect whether it matches her skin? Are all of these things required?

When she did it, the concealer confused her as to its purpose and she isn't even sure if there is 'foundation' in her makeup box or not. Is even putting on lipstick a lot more complex than she did it? It's a miracle she didn't turn herself into a troll.

She smiles up at Maxine staring into her eyes and feeling the touch on her hands on her face. Truthfully, she finds that she's kind of glad she didn't know this stuff.

Maxine dips a brush into a carefully selected color palette then brush a bit in parts of Chloe's face and around her eyes. She then takes out a different brush and brushes at the same area she put the concealer on keeping focus on her face. Chloe watches Maxine's blue eyes flit from area to area silently doing her magic.

"Now I'll have to set all the stuff on your face." Maxine says taking out a large, puffy brush. "Close your eyes."

She does as told and feels the puffy brush all over her face. When the feeling stopped and she hears Maxine messing with her bag, she testingly opens one eye then the other. She glances at the mirror in her makeup box and…she likes it. It's subtle but she does notice a difference.

Her skin is lighter and her facial features have a more 'upbeat' look to it. Once the other stuff is added – whatever they are – the look might be complete and she might resemble more like Polly or her mom. She chuckles internally at the thought of her being a mini version of Joyce.

"The next step is eyeshadow. You'll like this one, Chloe. My mom always says to use a subtle color, but I've seen other girls use all sorts of different colors. We can use the colors from your box too. Which one would you like?"

Chloe looks excitedly at the color palette Maxine pointed to, but she couldn't choose. All the colors look neat. She hums and haws staring at each one at points almost deciding on it before second guessing the choice. Then she gets an idea.

"Maxine, which color is your favorite?"

She blinks. "My favorite color? Oh, I like green."

"Then lets do that one."

Taking a brush from Chloe's box, she dips it in the green palette then applies it to Chloe's eyes. Afterwards, she had Chloe choose a blush – they ended up choosing a pinkish red together deciding it looks best on her – then brush it on her cheeks.

As last, they came to something Chloe thinks she knows.

"We have to put on your lipstick now."

"I want red for this."

She could have done this herself but Maxine took the initiative to apply it for her too…and she did it a very different way. She applies the lipstick to only two spots on the top and bottom lip, then she used her fingers to spread the lipstick. Once done, she leans back for a lecture.

"If you accidentally get lipstick on your teeth, what you do is pop a finger into your mouth, wrap your lips around it, and then pull it out. Like this."

She demonstrates and Chloe watches nodding. She looks at herself in the mirror making sure to check every curve and an especially close look at her eyes and lips. It's amazing just how much of a difference to her appearance the eyeshadow, blush, and lipstick alone make.

Smiling at her reflection, she likes the look she now has more and more with each second. She jumps up and does a bit of twirl looking at Maxine to see how she reacts. The other girl laughs and claps her hands.

"You look pretty!" Chloe blushes at the compliment. "You look really different!"

Chloe touches her faces happily feeling more and more elated each second slowly beginning to understand why Polly did this. When she turns to Maxine again and stares into her face, she gets her own idea. Sitting down in front of her, Chloe clasps her hand.

"Let me do you too?"

"You want to put makeup on me? Alright." Maxine sits down waiting. "Do me."

The entire process is repeated as Chloe tries to follow the steps Maxine taught her. It takes her a moment to start, but then she remembers that she must start by cleansing the face. Taking a skin toner pad, she proceeds by wiping Maxine's face as she sits compliantly waiting.

It took some prodding, reminding, and coaching from Maxine here and there, but Chloe goes through the process relatively well reinforcing the things she was taught. When it came time to apply the lipstick, Maxine chose a light pink.

She puckers her lips and leans forward as she closes her eyes. Chloe carefully dabs lipstick on her lips and spreads it as she remembers starting with the bottom. The brunette opens her lips slightly to allow Chloe easier spreading. Chloe hums appreciatively and slowly traces her finger along to ensure the lipstick is applied evenly.

Afterwards, she smiles. Noticing the pause, Maxine opens her eyes and checks herself in the mirror. "That's good. Now do my upper lip."

The second time goes easier, though no more quickly than the previous. When the process was over, she mutters a 'done'. Maxine checks herself in the mirror again smiling. She gets up and does her own twirl imitating Chloe who smiles and compliments Maxine.

Sitting down in front of her, Maxine looks at her curiously. "Say, why now?"

"Hm?"

"Why are you suddenly interested in makeup? You didn't mention anything about it before and I didn't notice any makeup in your room the last time I came here. Why are you interested now?"

Chloe thinks it over. "I think I should get a boyfriend."

"Really? Is there someone you like?"

"No, not really." She shakes her head. "It's just…all the other girls have one and it feels like I should too." She sighs then glances over. "Do you have anyone you're interested in?"

Maxine shakes her head. "No. My mom told me I would have a boyfriend one day and she says that's why it's important to learn makeup now in order to get the right one. She says I need it to find the right one."

"The right one?" Chloe hesitates but badly wanted to know the answer. "How do you know which one is the right one?"

"She says he's the smartest one. He has the best clothes and he looks good. She says all the girls want him, so I have to try hard to get him before they can. She told me that any girl can get a boyfriend, but to get a good one requires hard work."

This just confuses her more. 'Smartest'? 'Best Clothes'? 'Looks good'? None of these things describe a lot of 'boyfriends' she has seen. In fact, these words don't describe a lot of the boys in general. Most of them look normal, not like they have the best of anything.

Does that mean those girls didn't get the 'right one'? If not, why not? And how can she?

"I'm so confused." Chloe mutters.

"It confused me too." Maxine says. "But my mom says it's important to know. She says there are so many things you have to know, to do in order to get ahead in life. I have to know the piano to be smart. I have to study to get a good job. I have to wear makeup to be pretty."

After a moment of silence, Chloe whispers, "But I think you're pretty already."

Maxine looks at her and gives a small, sad smile. "I knew you'd say that."

"Well…it's because I do think it."

"Yeah, but you're my friend, Chloe. It's not the same. We're supposed to tell each other that we're pretty."

"Would it mean more if we weren't friends?"

That gives Maxine pause and confusion comes over her face. She swallows. "It's weird. I don't think it does. Knowing what you think means a lot to me, Chloe, but I'm doing everything now for a bunch of people I don't know."

"I'm studying to impress some guy I don't know so he'll give me a job. I'm losing weight to get a boyfriend I've never seen. My dad wants me to start taking French lessons to be cultured and impress my business 'clients', which I don't have."

It took a long time, but finally, Chloe responded. "You're right, Maxine. I'm doing the same thing right now too. For what it's worth, though, I think all this work was worth it because I had a lot of fun with you today and I was…really happy when you called me pretty."

Maxine pauses, then coughs. "It's no big deal."

"It is to me." Chloe says haltingly. "I'm…so happy to have met you, Maxine. We've only known each other for a short time, but you've become the best thing to happen to me."

Maxine regards her steadily. "I'm happy to have met you too, Chloe. You bring light into my life."

They fell into silence gazing into each other's eyes. Picking up a comic book, Chloe holds it up questioningly. She nods in return and they lie down beside each other. Chloe leans up close against Maxine and opens the comic book to begin reading.

It was largely a quiet time as they read through the book. Chloe didn't really care much for the story, though she does like their closeness as they enjoy the comic. Eventually, Chloe's father arrived home and he calls for them prompting them to get up.

Disappointed, Chloe licks her lips, "My dad's home. That means your mom is not too far behind."

Maxine clasps her hand and smile. "Don't worry. I'll come back. Now lets go down."

Downstairs, William is excitedly preparing waffles. When he hears the footstep of the two girls approaching from behind him, he automatically puts on a big smile to announce the upcoming waffles. His smile drops when he turns around.

"Oh…well…" He takes a moment to gather himself. "I see you two girls have been trying on makeup. My, eyeshadow and lipstick and everything. The whole works."

Chloe giggles. "Maxine helped me with mine."

"Oh." William clears his throat. "Any reason why?"

"I'm looking for a boyfriend."

A very long pause. "Uh, not that I don't think that's good and all, but aren't you a little young for that? Both of you. And you girls don't need all this makeup for something _like that_."

"Don't be ridiculous, dad. We're pretty."

William quickly assures them using his cartoon voice. "Oh yes, _very_ pretty. The belles of the ball. The cutest girls in the world. Chloe with her luxurious wild hair and Maxine with her adorable babyfat cheeky weeky face. You're both-"

"Maxine doesn't have babyfat!" Chloe interrupts vehemently surprising William. "She's thin and pretty and she's been keeping her diet!"

"O-oh right, I didn't mean it like that. I'm sorry!" William stutters a bit. "Um, uh…waffles…in fifteen?"

Nodding, Chloe pulls Maxine along to the couch as her father watches them go. Afterwards, he feels old. He also gets the feeling this scene will be repeated when Joyce gets home.

The two girls watches TV together alternating between laughing at what they see on TV and whatever Chloe pulls up on her phone. Their laughing is interrupted only when William arrives – slow and cautious – with one plate of blueberry waffles, one plate of strawberry waffles, and a bottle of syrup.

Maxine takes the blueberry waffles plain while Chloe pour plenty of syrup on her strawberry one. Not that it matters as they ended up feeding each other their own waffles.

When Vanessa called to say she was near, Chloe quickly jumps into action pulling Maxine upstairs with her to the bathroom. There, they wiped off any traces of syrup off their face to prevent Vanessa from knowing Maxine had been gorging on waffles. Because their makeup then smudged badly, they decide to wipe it all off too.

Grabbing her stuff, they run downstairs to wait out front until the familiar car pulls up. Chloe was about to mutter a good-bye when Maxine leans up and kisses her cheek eliciting a surprise blush. At last, the two separates staring at each other even as Vanessa pulls away.

Walking back inside the house and leaning against the door, Chloe heaves a sigh wondering when seeing her friend leave will become easy.

The memory of their using makeup together would remain strongly with Chloe the longest time and she continues to apply makeup (only to take it off immediately afterwards) at least every other day in order to keep what she learned fresh.

At the time, she had thought that it would be the highlight of the month for them, but, only a week after that day, Maxine comes again. When she came inside, she puts her hands behind her back and juggles something out of view.

Chloe tries to cajole what it is out of her and playfully reaches around her, but Maxine insistently avoids her saying she can only see it upstairs with her eyes closed.

So she gives in and they go up to her room. There, she closes her eyes. Curiously, Maxine then physically maneuvers her body – while reminding her to keep her eyes closed – then asks her to make a kind of face. When she does so, a moment of silence passes before she hears the sound of a shutter.

She couldn't resist anymore and opens her eyes. That's when she sees Maxine standing there with a new smartphone. She jumps up excitedly and rushes over.

"You finally got a smartphone!"

"Yep. I had to beg for a few days, but they finally said yes. My mom said she'll watch me closely to ensure I don't get distracted too much, though."

Chloe looks down at the photo Max had taken of her. "Hey, let me show you a few tricks."

It seems like Maxine learned to utilize the camera pretty well on the phone, but she was ignorant of some of its finer aspects. Aspects such as sending the photos she takes through text messaging – to Chloe, of course – and video calling.

Maxine had convinced her parents to get her a smartphone on the strength of their utility towards her education and time. It does end up aiding her greatly in that regard, but, despite Vanessa's best efforts, it also becomes a primary source of entertainment for her, especially as she isn't allowed to have much else in her room.

Thanks to video calling, Chloe is now able to watch TV shows with Maxine instead of just narrating it. The brunette also fell in love with her phone camera taking dozens of photos daily and sending it. They would be on the phone with each other late into the night.

As their time and lives become more intertwined, though, the small changes continue to blossom into something greater and greater. On a visit to Maxine's house one day, Vanessa, as has become usual, arrives and asks to Chloe to prepare to be driven home.

In an unusually bold move, though, Maxine asks her mom to let Chloe stay over saying she wanted another sleepover. Vanessa is immediately opposed to this, but not wanting to do so openly, tries to argue around it. She used every argument she could think of from focusing on studies to Chloe's parents not approving on such short notice to them not having enough room.

The two girls had a counter for every argument, though, and Maxine refused to budge regardless of how firm her mother was. Vanessa was forced to reluctantly consent clarifying that she'll only allow it this once. That one allowance, though, was soon forced to grow when Maxine consistently asks again and again.

So combine with their ever increasing time spent on calls with each other, their time at each other's houses, and their sleepovers, the two becomes inseparable. At that point, it could be surmised that the two already shown each other everything they had to show.

However, there is one last thing Chloe wanted to show the other.


	6. Chapter 06

** Chapter 06 **

As the days pass, the weeks pass, and the months pass, the time Chloe has been eagerly awaiting finally arrives: Summer.

School is let out with a wild celebration by all students and the cheering continues even as they thundered out the doors of the school. Chloe is equally jubilant and she rushes from her school towards the direction of Hoover Middle School at a breakneck pace.

As has become the norm, though, she did not have to run the whole mile to see her goal. A little over half way, she sees Maxine in a rush towards her too. They jump into each other's arms cheering about no more school and no more work. Maxine is especially blissful saying her workload will now drastically decrease and they can spend more time together.

In reality, of the two of them, Chloe will probably be the only one without any real work to do during summer. Her mother had asked her to help as an unpaid assistant at the Two Whales, but it is only four hours a day during the busiest part. Maxine, on the other hand, later told her that her parents had prepared a series of 'summer educational tasks' for her, including increasing all the extracurricular lessons she's taking now and adding some others for good measure, including the French lessons her father had long spoke of.

"So you'll be busy all summer?" Chloe asked in dismay.

Maxine looks visibly upset. "I hope not. They did let off a little when I asked if I could play with you too, but my mom says 90% of my week has to be spent keeping up. She's been kind of mad lately."

"Why?"

"My, uh, grades have been slipping and I've been getting more distracted."

"I'm sorry." Chloe says horrified. "I didn't mean to-"

"It's not you. It's the smartphone. The camera, I mean." She clarifies. "I really fell in love with it. I spend so much time with it now just taking photos."

Chloe could have guessed that even without her saying. Maxine has been sending her innumerable photos – most of which are of seemingly mundane things – and she shows her even more when they're together.

It doesn't stop the bit of guilt from going through her. After all, it was her who originally convinced Maxine that a smartphone was great. Truth was that though she listed many educational benefits at the time, the real reason she wanted Maxine to get a smartphone was so that they could use the many sharing apps together.

Simultaneously, she also feels elated that she helped brought something into the other girl's life that gave her happiness. Even if she may be as bold as to say the phone isn't the only thing and Maxine's room is proof of this.

Littered around the room is evidence that Chloe has been here. The manga she gave Maxine long ago rest near bedside. Her blue backpack – once plain and barren – now has crude drawings of yellow haired girls attached to it. Her wall is also lined with photographs the two took together.

Chloe's room is much the same. The perfume Maxine gave to her remains a treasured possession and lies securely in her clothing drawer. On her desk, alongside portraits of her parents, now sits numerous portraits of the two of them which was gifted to her. However, by far the most valuable thing she was given was something wholly unexpected.

During an end to an otherwise normal visit to Maxine's home where the two of them spent the entire time trying to create an original piano tune, she was stopped shortly before leaving by the other girl who runs upstairs and returns with her stuffed panda.

In a move that surprised both Chloe and her mother, Maxine holds the animal out to Chloe saying she would like her to have it.

Chloe sputters a bit. "But I thought Panda Bear makes you feel better? I can't take him, Maxine."

"I…don't think I need him anymore, Chloe. I haven't for a while now. So I want you to take care of my bear."

Hesitantly, Chloe takes the bear and thanks her. On the drive home, the toy seem to grow in importance and she holds on to it tightly. In a rare display, even Vanessa seem happy with what happened saying that she's glad Maxine no longer needs that silly bear. She just nods in silence.

At home, she rushes up to her room and spent an hour trying to find a suitable spot for her new treasure. Eventually, she places him on a desk near her bed so she can stare at him before going to sleep. Later on, her mom helps her wash the bear and she spends some time grooming it before placing him back in his spot.

He takes a minor spot in her room, but his importance is outsized. It feels almost a little weird to see it as such and she can almost see Vanessa's point of view, but it doesn't stop her from feeling so.

With that gift, Chloe had long thought that they had given as much of each other as possible. All of their thoughts, feelings, and spirit could be found in the gifts they gave. However, one day, Chloe realizes that there is still one last thing she wanted to share with Maxine.

It was an idea that had been brewing in her head. It came to her when she examined both hers and Maxine's rooms. Their rooms have now become filled with mementos of their time together and the things they've been through.

And as she sees all this and realize each have become a part of the other, she realized there was still something special that she had not shown to Maxine or, in fact, even spoke about. Hillside Home.

Chloe, being a person who had needed a lot of personal time, has come to view it as an important part of her life because it provided this time. She goes there to be alone, to think, and to generally 'recharge her batteries' so to say. She wanted to share that part of herself with Maxine.

So as the idea first appeared and continues to reappear in her mind, a hazy plan soon forms and, when summer arrived, she hints and teases Maxine about a special place she wants to take her to. When asked, she remains stubbornly insistent that it remains a secret as she wanted Maxine to really be surprised by it. Eventually, she promises to take her during the next time they have a sleepover.

Then the doubts begin to pile up.

It occurs to her that Hillside Home is really just a cave in the middle of nowhere and she goes there for solitude, not entertainment. What could Maxine see in it? As the doubts rises and rises, she, feeling unhappy and dissatisfied, just outright admits to Maxine what she wanted to show her expecting to hear disappointment.

"I want to see it." Chloe looks up in surprise. "If you like it, then there must be something nice about it. I want to see it."

"But it's really nothing. There's nothing to do there."

"Well, we can bring comics."

So it became the case that even though it is her special place and she was the one who originally wanted to go there together, Maxine became the bigger advocate of the occasion than Chloe.

Maxine gathered comics, leftover snacks Chloe kept in her room and newly baked ones from Joyce, and, on a whim, brought along the Bluetooth speaker William bought for Chloe's birthday. After that, she cajoles Chloe into showing her the way to Hillside Home and she was so insistent on it that they went on the promised day even though the skies looked threateningly dark and cloudy and the scent of rain is in the air.

When they neared the area where they have to step off onto a path of grass, Chloe checks the skies again to see it hasn't changed. If anything, it got worse. The temperature is also surprisingly chilly for summer. It has been a cool year so far to begin with, but it feels almost unnaturally so right now.

"Chloe." Maxine whines. "Lets go."

She nods and continues onwards the familiar unmarked path leading the two of them into a tree cluster. Maxine clutches her hand and stares around with wide, nervous eyes. Chloe squeeze her hand a little to offer comfort.

The area is noticeably darker than the outside. With the coming of spring and summer, the trees that used to be merely dead branches which allows light to scenically flow in has grown healthy with life alongside the ground coming alive with grass and flowers.

The result is an abundance of smells and sights everywhere but it also has an effect of blocking more light from coming through the treetops making the area look darker. Combined with the already small cluster of trees becoming even thicker and tighter with the new life everywhere, this ends up making the area more imposing. Lower visibility and lesser freedom of movement.

The sound of a rustling nearby makes Maxine shiver. She releases Chloe's hand in favor of clutching her arm and Chloe can feel her body shivering.

"It's not much further. Don't worry." Chloe assures her. "It's safe here. I've been here many times."

She continues forward more boldly to show her there's nothing to fear. They walk around the trees that Chloe has passed many times which now changed greatly due to the new foliage. The sight of Arcadia Bay, which used to still be partially visible during the colder seasons, has disappeared entirely.

A pinch of nervousness flits through her. Previously, she wouldn't mind all of this and, in fact, would have preferred it. After all, the appeal of this place was isolation from the outside world. In those times, though, she was alone. She has Maxine with her now and thoughts that didn't exist before now comes to mind.

What if Maxine gets injured while they're here? There would be nobody close to help and an ambulance would have trouble coming inside. Or what if there's some killer who took shelter here? He might decide to kidnap or, worse, murder Maxine. Even the thought was unbearable to Chloe.

She stops walking getting the idea that they should turn back and leave right now. Who cares about this stupid place anyway? She herself don't even remember the last time she visited. The two of them could go back to her home where they'll be warm and comfortable and safe. They can snuggle on the couch or in her room and watch TV or read comics.

"Chloe? Why did we stop?"

"Maybe this isn't a good idea." Chloe says. "I think we'll be better at my house again. Lets go back."

The brunette once again takes the rein to ensure the journey's success. "Don't be silly. We're almost there. We've been waiting for this. C'mon."

Now Maxine pulls on her hand leading the way even though she doesn't know where the location is. She simply continues in the direction they had been going. Chloe puts up some resistance but it withers immediately against Maxine's tugging and determination.

Though the area now is now fuller than before, it remains the same place and it wasn't long before they came to a clearing. Maxine pauses and stares around curiously. When she turns to look at Chloe, she nods confirming this is the right place.

"This is what you wanted to show me?"

"Yeah, it's called Hillside Home."

"Hillside Home..." Maxine repeats wonderingly. "What did you do here?"

"Just hang out after school, really." Chloe stares up at the sky which is almost entirely blocked by the tree tops. "It was a lot brighter then. Also more spacey."

The area is smaller now due to the plant growth. They could hardly move for any decent length in any direction without coming up against a bush or fallen tree branch.

Maxine, noticing a cave, got on all fours and crawled in to take a look. "Did you go inside here?"

"Yeah."

"It's kind of small. I don't think the both of us could fit in here."

With that, it seems like this whole idea that originally got her so excited has now been confirmed to be really stupid. Chloe feels a decisive breath of sadness go through her which is muted as she had been expecting this to happen.

What the hell had she been thinking?

"Alright, lets settle down." The words surprise Chloe. "What comic do you want to read first, Chloe?"

"You…you still want to stay?"

Maxine nods. "Yes. We came all this way and this is your special place, right? Then I want to stay. So lets have fun." She looks around a bit worriedly. "I think we should have brought a flashlight, though. I didn't know it'd be this dark here."

Chloe jumps to help. "We can start a fire. I have a lighter with me."

Her friend likes the idea. Together using the limited knowledge of camping they have but being extra careful, the two forms a firepit encircled by large rocks and fill the middle with a combination of sticks, leaves, and some doodling paper they had with them.

After clearing the area a bit to ensure there's less chance the whole area would be set ablaze, Chloe tries to start it as Maxine watches quietly beside her.

The process turns out to be a lot harder than thought. The only thing that was easily lit up was the doodling paper, so she tried to use them as a conduit to set fire to the rest. Instead, what happens is that the paper would burn up rapidly while neither the leaves nor sticks would keep a flame burning.

After a few minutes of frustration, she finally lucks out when one branch is able to keep a fire. From there, she is able to use it to spread the fire bit by bit. A second branch is lit, a third, then some leaves. Eventually, a small fire appears which then turns into a bigger one.

When it became steady, the two of them cautiously put more materials on. Sometimes, it shrunk a little but then it grows again. It even becomes a bit of a game to do so as the two finds random objects to see how it burns. She would throw on a few mushrooms and Maxine would test different branches on it. This also serves a useful purpose of clearing the area as the two used only materials on the ground around them.

After the fire became large enough for the two of them to keep their distance, Maxine looks at it and frowns. "I still can't see much. We would have to sit close to the fire and I don't like that." She walks over and stands opposite of Chloe. "So lets play a game instead. Lets wrestle."

Chloe laughs. "Just be sure to stay away from the fire."

With that, Maxine rushes forward wrapping her arms around Chloe's waist trying to force her down. It isn't the first time they wrestled. This time will go the same as every time before. The much lighter Maxine will ultimately get overpowered. It wouldn't be any fun to win quickly, though, so Chloe plays along.

She falls backwards taking the both of them down to the ground where Maxine straddles her for a 'pin', but she grabs her and then the two start rolling trying to be the one on top. The little brunette struggle valiant but Chloe merely rolls her eyes in amusement. She forcefully turns them over with some measurement of effort then, using her weight, lies on top easily keeping the other down.

Maxine tries her hardest to push Chloe off or turn them, but couldn't. When her cheeks turn red from the exhausting effort, a bit of sympathy goes through Chloe and she intentionally turns slowly until Maxine is on top again where she immediately goes for another pin.

"One, two, three!" Maxine shouts. "I win!"

"Yes, you win." Chloe smiles. "What next?"

Frowning, Maxine lies her head down on Chloe's chest. "I don't know." She shivers a little. "It's getting colder."

Chloe wraps an arm around her hugging her close to share body warmth. She reaches up with the other arm to play with her friend's hair. Maxine remains quiet letting Chloe continue.

Lying there, soaking in the ambience of Hillside Home, an aura of calm blankets the two girls. Chloe glances now and then at the other girl.

"Hey, uh, Maxine? I wanted to thank you. For Panda Bear. I've sat him in a special place in my room."

"It's okay. I'm glad you like him."

"I'm still not too sure, though. Why did you give him away?"

"I told you. I didn't need him anymore. I have you now." Chloe stares up at the foliage blankly not answering. A moment later, Maxine speaks again. "Do you know why Panda Bear comforts me?"

"No. Tell me."

Maxine licks her lips. "Don't laugh, okay? I like to imagine Panda Bear as sort of like a stronger version of me. Taller, tougher, and no one messes with him. He is kind of big…but bears are supposed to be, right?"

She becomes more animated. "That's also why I like him. He's perfect as he is. He's big, he doesn't have to do anything except eat bamboo – which is what he wants anyway – and he spends his days having fun. Him and the other pandas. They would get together, eat bamboo, and that's it."

Chloe digests this. "If…you're imaging Panda Bear as a stronger version of yourself, why isn't 'he' a 'she'? Why did you make your bear a boy instead of a girl?"

"I don't know. I guess it's easier to imagine him that way. It makes him feel more different than me."

"But isn't he supposed to be you?"

"Yeah…but…it's hard. He is supposed to be me, but I can't imagine myself in the same situation." Maxine slides off Chloe and lands on the ground besides her staring up too. "I'm not perfect the way I am. I can't just eat bamboo all day and have fun all the time. I wish I could be a panda, but I'm not. So instead, I sometimes like to stare at him and imagine him just sitting there eating and, somehow, it makes me feel better."

Chloe swallows. "So when you said you gave him to me because you no longer need him…?"

"Because you make me feel better now." Maxine nods. "You call me constantly and talk to me. I come over to your house and we have fun a lot. Oh, and…" She blushes a little. "You're taller than me and you're happy all the time. Your life is perfect. You're like a real life version of Panda Bear."

A tingling sense of disappointment makes its way into her realizing Maxine doesn't really know her at all. Or that is she doesn't know the 'her' that exists prior to Maxine's entrance into her life and the one that would no doubt return should she leave.

She intended to let the other girl believe what she will, especially if she takes some sort of comfort from believing it, but she must have noticed something on her face.

"Chloe, what's wrong? Did I say something bad?"

"No, nothing bad. It's just…" She sighs and decides to come out with it. "My life isn't as good as you think it is."

Maxine's eyes widen. "But it is good! I've seen it so many times and you shared so many experiences with me! You're the most interesting, beautiful, confident, and giving person I've ever met!"

She takes a breath. "Even, even if it isn't really the ideal that I might think, you're obviously a very happy person living how you want to live. If I hadn't met you, I might not ever have had a chance to experience so much."

She couldn't stop the abrupt outburst. "But that's just it! If I hadn't met _you_ , I wouldn't have either!"

A confused silence. "Chloe, what do you mean? I don't understand."

"I mean just that. The only reason I'm so happy all the time, always doing something interesting, and am so giving is because _you are here_. If you never showed up, the 'me' you see now wouldn't exist."

"I don't understand. I didn't do anything. How could you have _not_ be who you are if it weren't for me?"

Feeling dry mouth and a little nervous, Chloe tries to explain. "Maxine, before you came along, my life wasn't anything like this. You know what I used to do all the time? I would daydream throughout school, then, afterwards, I would go directly home and do things which I don't even want to do that much just because I have nothing else to do."

She gets up and gestures around her. "You see this place? This place I named Hillside Home? It's a _stupid_ small cave in a small clearing in a random patch of trees. There are probably a hundred just like this in Arcadia Bay…and they're all empty because most people aren't pathetic enough to need it like I do. I need it because, before you, _I didn't have any friends_."

The admission was painful. For the longest time, even she refused to acknowledge that there wasn't anyone she would call a friend…and mean it. It's why whenever she was reminded of it – by her parents, by school – she would run to a place where she can ignore it. Hillside Home became special by that merit.

For that reason, the admission – in this place where she is supposed to be protected from it – was painful. However, strangely, it also felt freeing to be able to admit it. It also felt feeing that Maxine is here to hear her admit it.

Maxine looks more confused and troubled. "I don't understand. How could you not have any friends? You're so awesome to be around. So amazing and beautiful and confident. How could anyone not like you?"

Chloe chuckles with a hint of sadness. "You know you're the first person I've met who thought that about me? When you told me that I'm what you're supposed to look like, it blew me away. Before I met you, I didn't think my height and thinness was a good thing."

"I thought you were the cutest thing I've ever saw." Maxine's face reddens. "So I just couldn't understand why you want to look like _me_. In fact, there was a lot about you that I…I kind of wish I had."

Maxine gazes at her. "Like what?"

"Well, just about everything. It seems you do everything and are good at everything. Your grades are great, you can play the piano, dance, and are also taking foreign language lessons. I think the best I can do is a few phrases in Japanese."

Chloe blushes a little. "I, uh, also love your house. It's incredible. It's huge and it's beautiful."

Maxine gives an unsteady smile. "I will give you the house, but everything else? You don't want it. Chloe, haven't you been listening to me?"

"Huh?"

"I don't _want_ to do all those things. I _hate_ doing all those things. I can never do anything I want to do. I don't want to play the piano and I don't want to know French." She sighs heavily. "All I really want to do is ready comics all day and eat Joyce's brownies."

Wincing a little, Chloe continues, "I knew…you didn't really enjoy those things, but I still think it's amazing. You are the only person I know who can play the piano and I still like to replay your _Amazing Grace_ every now and then in my head."

"When I heard you were learning French, I was tickled. You see, my parents sometimes mentioned this stupid little idea of going to Paris. I was thinking we could take you along and have you translate for us." She tries to insert a bit of humor into it. "You see, learning French is an investment into the future."

"You sound like my mom just then." Maxine mutters angrily surprising her. "I don't _want_ to learn French, Chloe." The brunette turns to her looking more intense. "I would tell you about my life before I met you, Chloe, but thing is that I think you can already guess it. It looks almost exactly like what you've been hearing."

"Instead, let me tell you what my life has become like _after_ I met you and why I love it so much more than my old life."

"After I get out of school, I then stand in the front trying to decide whether I'll go to your house or mine. Which I choose depending entirely on how upset I think my mom would be if I did go to your house."

"If I do go home, I then try to study or practice my lessons, but now, I'll do it with the smartphone I got glued to my side counting down until you contact me or until I think I can contact you."

"I used to spend most of my time in my room bored and try to go downstairs to look outside only to be shooed back upstairs or called by my parents to do something else." Here, her intensity lightens into a slight humor. "Now it's the opposite. My mom has been trying to move a lot of my study materials and lessons downstairs while I try to insist I need to be in the room."

"Why? It's all because of you."

Chloe got the idea. "Because your parents are worried we're spending all our time on the phone, right?"

Maxine nods. "Yes, Chloe. They want me downstairs so they can see I'm working. Before you, I would always – like a good girl – do as I'm told. Before you, I never ignored my books or lessons and I've never talk back to my mom to get her to let me do something else. That's how much you've changed things for me…and I like it this way so much better."

"I _hate_ my old life, Chloe." Her vehemence surprises the other girl. "I don't like having to do all those things and I hate how my mom keeps making me do them. I hate _her_."

Those last three words seem to echo in the air. Afterwards, Maxine's face pales and she shakes her head a little as if unable to believe her own words. Chloe slides over a bit wrapping an arm around her friend.

"No, I don't hate her. I love her, Chloe, I _do_. I…just wish she wouldn't do this to me. I wish she was more like your mom. I wish my dad was more like yours too."

"Maxine, stop it. I _like_ your mom. I like your dad too."

A pause. "Why?"

"Your mom is always around." She leans on her elbows a little. "Think of all the times you've been to my house. Haven't you ever noticed how my parents frequently aren't there? Did you notice they were nowhere around today when we left? Do you remember your first visit where your mom had to come a certain time just to catch my parents?"

Chloe continues, "My parents are never around, Maxine. Their jobs are their lives. I have so much freedom because they can't be around to watch me. Do you remember our first meeting? At the Two Whales diner? What did you think of having a birthday party in a dingy little diner?"

Maxine stumbles a bit. "I actually thought it was kind of neat."

"I hated it." Chloe admits. "I was embarrassed by it. I wanted a birthday at my house with my parents spending the whole time with me. Instead, we had it at the Two Whales because my mom couldn't get off work. Did you also saw when my dad came and noticed how we had to leave quickly? It's because he had to get back to work."

"Work, work, work, _fucking_ work. We have furniture and stuff at home meant for us to use together as a family but we never do because we're hardly ever together. I hate it, Maxine. I hate it!"

Falling back in exhaustion, Chloe takes a moment to breathe before continuing. "That's why I like your parents. Your mom and dad are hard, but they're around. With me, all you ever get is loneliness."

"But with me…" Maxine whispers. "…all you ever get is suffocated."

The two of them gazes into each other's eyes for a while. Chloe was the first to let out a small laugh then Maxine follows suit. They both burst into full blown laughter for an unknown time before it died down. Beside them, the fire crackles and dies down a bit.

Maxine reaches over tracing a finger along Chloe's collarbone affectionately as the latter sighs in peace.

"We each can't have what we want." The brunette says. "But I think we can get a taste of it in each other."

"Are you happy with just a taste?" Chloe says.

"No, but it'll have to do."

"Likewise." Chloe looks around in distaste. "After our, uh, talk just now, I'm really wondering why I bothered to bring us here."

Maxine stares around. "So you don't really like this place? I don't think it's so bad. It's kind of nice, really, to just be away from others for a little."

"That sounds familiar." An idea hits Chloe. "Do you really like it? Maxine, I want to gift it to you then."

"What? You're giving me this entire area?"

"Yep. It is mine, right? I named it. Now I'm giving it to you. Chloe's Hillside Home is now Maxine's Hillside Home."

Maxine stares at her wide-eyed and uncertain. After a moment, her eyes clear and seem more determined. "Alright, thank you. Are you really sure?"

"Positive. I haven't been to this place for a long while anyway. Nowadays, I rather spend time with you any day of the week."

This earns a bright smile. "Then I think I'm going to put up photos here."

"Hey, your place."

"Right, my place." Her smile widens. "Also, since it's my place, I think I should determine what we do next."

"And what does my host have planned?"

"A dance."

She blinks. "You want to dance? Here?"

"Yeah. My mom's been making me get dancing lessons and I think I'm getting better, but I want to try it out. Help me, please?"

The two gets up. Chloe stares around hesitantly wondering how they're going to do this while Maxine goes to get the Bluetooth speaker William bought for Chloe. She brings it over.

"Play some music? Something for dance."

"Sure."

She had no idea what 'dance music' is or even what kind of specific dancing Maxine wants to do. So she simply plays something upbeat and simple off her phone. Her friend smiles nodding in approval at the choice and beckons Chloe over with her hands. Obediently, Chloe goes over.

Grasping each others' hands, Maxine leads the entire way keeping a fast pace but still easy to follow dance routine. She tries to imitate and, after several missteps, she slowly begin to catch on and the two create a rhythm. She never achieves the same gracefulness of movement like Maxine but the latter doesn't seem to mind.

The speaker reverberates through the empty clearing sounding louder than it might have otherwise considering its small size. Chloe drinks in the song, which now sounds better than she remembered, as the dance becomes more intense and movements become larger.

The two licks near the flames of the campfire a few times but it only causes giggling. They dance, twirl, and eventually break apart to perform their own solo acts around the fire. This scene of careless dancing continues for some time as the music changes and they went from a defined rhythm is one decided largely by their own whims.

Their merrymaking was interrupted only at the sound of raindrops from the top. Chloe stops and stares above in worry. The top was so thickly covered that not much water was getting through, but it seems like the rain might get heavier. From past experience, she knows that if it gets heavy enough, the leaves will bend and they'll get soaked.

"Maxine, we should take cover."

The other girl nod and they begin gathering up their supplies and putting them away. The rain quickens causing them to hurry. Small droplets started to seep through when they had just finished and tossed the supplies inside of the cave.

"It must be raining pretty hard for it to come through." Chloe mutters. She looks over. "Maybe we should stay until it calms down a bit."

A few droplets lands on Maxine's face making her flinch. "Where, though?"

"Inside the cave."

"But we won't fit."

"We have to try."

She gestures for Maxine to go in first. When she was in, Chloe already knew it would be way too tight. If they hadn't needed to protect their supplies, they might just both barely fit in, but now, it wasn't possible.

Feeling a tug on her hand to come in, Chloe bites her lips and bends down to try despite feeling it wouldn't work. She squeezes and pushes against Maxine trying to get in. The end result was that half her body is in but her back is exposed to the outside and she could feel rain hitting it. Rain that is slowly increasing in intensity.

"You're not fitting in." Maxine says in concern. "Here, lets do this."

The smaller girl surprised Chloe by climbing on top of her, then gesturing for Chloe to scoot in. Doing as requested, she is able to fit all the way in thanks to the now freed space. Minutes later, a threshold seemed to have been crossed as treetops flatten and allows a barrage of rain to come through.

The campfire, which had been weakened already, is killed immediately. Now with no campfire and the moon and stars hidden by rain clouds, the area is near pitch darkness. Involuntarily, a shiver goes through Chloe even though, inside, she isn't the slightest bit afraid.

She blinks when she feels more shivering against her. She glances down at darkened figure of her friend but couldn't make much from her face.

"Hey, are you alright?"

"…it's cold. I'm scared."

"Don't be. I'm here."

Maxine continues shivering. Chloe feels disappointment knowing she was unable to offer solace. The two stare outside into the darkness listening to the falling rain. At some point, Chloe turned back to the other girl on top of her and stares at her outline in the darkness. The outline turns to gaze at her too.

Even in the darkness, she could see the glowing blues that has become so familiar to her. The entire trip was not ideal to begin with and the rain only served to dampen the experience even further.

Still, they had fun and, more importantly, they learned a great deal about each other. Before coming, Chloe thought she knew almost the entirety of who Maxine Caulfield is only to realize she may not have even scratched the surface. Tonight, she peeked into the inner core that makes her friend who she is and feels privileged to do so.

A thrill goes through her knowing she herself also still has much to offer.

Hillside Home – a place where Chloe used to go to isolate herself – has become a place she used to open herself up to another and that other person likewise opened herself up to Chloe. They are both vulnerable, but, in the end, will only come out stronger for the experience as exposure breeds strength.

Here, in this clearing, it is only the two of them. The rest of the world is hidden and blocked by thick trees. In this clearing is their world where only the two of them matter. Hillside Home has been given to Maxine, but truth is that it both theirs. Their home was where they got to know each other, but this home is where they got to _know_ each other.

Somehow, sometime, without meaning to, Chloe leans up to the outline and presses her lips against the other.

When she leans away, she can feel embarrassment seep through her and she turns away unable to face those eyes anymore.

A moment later, Maxine rests her head on Chloe's chest. She stiffens a little at first before hesitantly raising her arms and encircling them around the other girl. They remain like that listening to the rain outside.

When she opens her eyes again, she is vaguely aware that the rain stopped. The area also seems a lot brighter than it should be. Peeking outside, she sees small slivers of light pierce through the treetops and flinches. This means they had been here the entire night.

Joyce and William aren't going to be happy. If Vanessa and Ryan finds out, they won't be either.

Maxine is still snoring lightly against her chest causing Chloe to smile at the appearance. She shakes Maxine lightly until the girl drowsily opens her eyes and looks around. When she turns her eyes up to Chloe, she smiles in return.

"Hey Maxine, we have to go now."

She nod and gets off her. She crawls out the cave blanching at the wet ground her hands and knees touched, then turns around to help Chloe out. Dragging their supplies out from the cave and dusting everything off, they were now ready to head home.

Chloe hesitantly touches Maxine's hand and the other quickly gets the idea returning the gesture with a firm clasp. Now together, the two start the trek back home.

The walk back out is much easier than the walk in due to daylight and their eagerness to back to the comfort of home. Taking out her cell phone, Chloe flinches seeing the numerous missed calls and messages that grew increasingly panicked and angry. She turns to Maxine.

"My parents are really mad."

"Are we in trouble?"

From past experience, Chloe knew the answer is 'yes'. There was one or two times in the past in which she made William and Joyce worried like this and their reaction was yelling and grounding.

However, she is almost certain that Maxine would not be punished, and she wonders if they would let her off the hook at the same time feeling that it would be fairer that they both would get off instead of only one being let off.

"I think they might forgive us." This earns a smile. "Now c'mon, lets go home."

They leave the forest coming out into a damp and quiet Arcadia Bay and begin the trek home nearly uninterrupted by the presence of anyone else. For the moment, it seemed they had the entire town to themselves.

Chloe's mind drifts to the future and she wonders where they'll go from here. She would like to spend as much of the rest of summer with Maxine as possible. Then there's her birthday in September to worry about – what should she get her? What would work?

Then there's Halloween. What should they dress as? She wants their costumes to be complimentary and matching, but maybe it's better to each go as their favorite persona? What would Maxine like?

And for her next birthday, her parents usually try to do something small and special for her, but she was already thinking that maybe they can recreate their first meeting at the Two Whales. This time, she and Maxine, her parents, and the Caulfields can be there to celebrate together. That would be nice.

Then what beyond that? She wonders what they would be doing a year or two or five down the line. Would they even still be together then?

Chloe glances over at Maxine and a strange feeling passes through her. She tightens the grip on her hand.

"Maxine, stay with me forever."

Her voice comes out in a bit of a quiver. The other girl looks at her and gives a small smile and inches closer to her. The two walk back home together their feet sending small splashes of water along the way.


	7. Author's Notes

Hello, friends.

_Two Friends_ first came to me as an idea while in the middle of writing 'Brand New Day' (BND). It then attacked me relentlessly until I finally sat down to write an outline for it in order to prepare for writing it after I finish BND.

As is typical with me getting plot ideas versus actually writing it out, the story goes through many changes. Originally, I had intended for Two Friends to show support for the foundations of a future relationship between Max and Chloe that occurs in the game, and to fit more within the canon.

Once the story began to take on life and the characters grew, though, their characterization moved into an area which naturally seem to fit them better. In the canon, I don't think Max is capable of playing the piano, I do not think Joyce and William are that intensely busy (at least not at that time in Chloe's life), and I don't think Ryan/Vanessa employs such authoritarian parenting styles.

In fact, the parents (Prices and Caulfields) weren't originally supposed to be featured so prominently at all nor have their personalities so expanded. However, I ended up growing their importance because they served as a great catalyst for understanding the nuances of Maxine's/Chloe's character.

I find I really like how they turned out too. The Prices' personalities came largely from the game combined with my personal touch, but for the Caulfields, particularly Vanessa, I turned to a book for help. That book is Amy Chua's _Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother_. It was an immense help in getting an understanding of and a method for forming Ryan/Vanessa and, ultimately, Maxine.

That is a method I haven't really used previously for creating a character. A lot of this story entailed me going out of my comfort zone in terms of how I write. Not only is it a different narrative style than I'm used to and prefer using, but it involved several subjects I wasn't confident I could conveyed as well as I would like to.

Trying to write in a way that conveys the personal feelings, personality, circumstances, and world of both Maxine and Chloe was particularly difficult for me. I did it partially in chapter 02, but then slowly ramped it up with the following chapters.

Incidentally, chapter 03 was when the story became dramatically more difficult to write. Chapter 03 went through several edits before I became satisfied. Chapter 04 went through several major edits that actually changed the entirety of the chapter.

Chapter 05 was a terrible beast. It went through numerous extensive overhauls before I became satisfied with it and each overhaul took an immense amount of time to write. To give some idea of what occurred, here is how it was written: I wrote chapter 05, completely rewrote it, combined it with chapter 06, then completely rewrote the whole thing again. The word count jump from 5K to 9K to 8K to finally settling at around 7K. Writing it took so much time and effort that it derailed my normal update schedule.

By comparison, chapter 06 was a breeze. It also went through edits and overhauls, but it was simple compared to prior chapters.

After all is said and done, I'm generally satisfied with how the story went but I definitely felt it could have used improvements in areas.

In particular, while I was happy with how Chloe and her family came out, I was less satisfied with how Maxine and hers did. I especially felt that I didn't give Vanessa the development she should have received and that Maxine's life/world wasn't appropriately conveyed. This took away from the story as she and Chloe were supposed to serve as a sort of foil to each other, but Maxine's lack of development diluted this aspect.

Furthermore, I also think Chloe's school life deserved more attention.

In the end, _Two Friends_ turned into another lesson in writing and another pillar in the foundation to which I will improve future writings. Hopefully, my future writing efforts will reflect this.


End file.
